tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 17 22:53:12 1994
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Re: Use of question words
On Fri, 18 Feb 1994, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>
>> jatlh 'e' mevnISDI' 'oH Sov SuvwI'
>
> Well, I might prefer it without the "'oH", but otherwise it's okay. It
> doesn't emphasize the time quite so much, but that's okay. Another
> rephrase would be "jatlh 'e' mev 'e' Sov SuvwI'": a warrior knows *that* he
> has finished speaking. Not precisely the words I had in English? So what.
> In this usage, it suffices. I, too, doubt that such rephrasing always
> works, though, and I don't think it goes against canon. What examples have
> you for better suggestions?
>
> ~mark
>
I am not sure that I have any examples, but I think I can define
the problem. When using simple sentences, the problem does not exist.
Temporal pronouns such a when can be expressed by verbal suffixes, such as
in:
qara'DI' yIbaH
The problem arises when want to make one clause dependent on another. Our
tendency is to do this with the 'e' pronoun. This is fine for most
sentences, such as:
qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSov
Here the "qama'pu' DIHoH" is a dependent clause which basically functions
as the object of the verb (please excuse my use of English grammatical
terms). In English this works for "When he needs to stop speaking . . ."
because this type of temporal clause can be used as the object of the
verb, as in "A warrior knows when he needs to stop speaking." It does not
work in tlhIngan Hol, however, because according to TKD 6.2.5 an object
clause which uses 'e' must be a complete sentence. In other words, to use
the 'e' pronoun you need to have two complete sentences. "When he
needs to stop speaking . . ." would be expressed in tlhIngan Hol as:
jatlh 'e' mevnISDI'
Since this is not a complete sentence it cannot be used as the object of a
verb.
Since I am not a list grammarian I do not want to overstep my
bounds, but I still do not think that question words can be used except
when asking a question. I am open to being proved wrong.
Qapla'
Kevin