tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 17 22:06:48 1994
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Re: Talk like a Klingon!
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Talk like a Klingon!
- Date: Mon, 18 Jul 94 10:02:48 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "d'Armond Speers" at Jul 17, 94 10:51 am
According to d'Armond Speers:
>
...
> > I would like to propose two alternatives to "qatlh naDev SoHbe'"
> > that lack any "to be" construction (something I feel one should
> > avoid in order to sound "Klingon"). My suggestions are
> >
> > "qatlh bISaHbe'?"
>
> We know that we can use verbal suffixes with pronouns, but is there
> evidence that we can do so when the pronoun is NOT used in a "to be"
> construction? By removing the component of the sentence you objected
> to, you invalidated your rephrasal. Also, we are told that we can use
> verbal suffixes, but there's no evidence (to my knowledge) that we can
> use prefixes with pronouns.
Look closer, jupwI'. That's {bISaHbe'}, not {bISoHbe'}. While
it is true that in a post far distant in the past, someone did
try to put a prefix on a pronoun, that's not what happened here.
This is indeed a valid alternative, though it might be
considered ambiguous, since it can mean, "Why are you not
here?" or it can mean "Why don't you care?" My own spin on that
might be that {SaH} as "to care (about)" is almost certainly
transitive, while {SaH} as "to be present" is almost certainly
intransitive. Since there is no object in this sentence, one
would presume that it means "be present", and would therefore
not be ambiguous.
charghwI'