tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 09 21:14:53 1994
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Qaghqoq
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: Qaghqoq
- Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 10:13:06 -0500
- In-Reply-To: Nick NICHOLAS's message of Thu, 10 Mar 94 18:37:51 EST <[email protected]>
>From: [email protected] (Nick NICHOLAS)
>Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 18:37:51 EST
>Ah yes. The old perennial chestnut ;) . One of the points of the translation
>effort was to augment these wish lists; in my opinion, they don't need to
>be. More often than not, try harder within Klingon, rather than calquing
>English.
Depends what kinds of answers you're expecting from Okrand. When I ask for
these structures, I don't necesarily want "calques from English" or new
words or suffixes, but just for Okrandian approval of some sort of
Klingonic method, like when he OK'd the "tlhejtaHvID/tlhejDI'" construction
for "with" in HolQeD 2:4. Perhaps a new verb or noun to help out with some
of these if it's really necessary, but not changes to the grammar.
>My one exception would be, as I've already mentioned, an irrealis marker,
>to distinguish cases like "if you misspeak, the Emperor will kill you" from
>"had you misspoken, the Emperor would have killed you" (and no, context
>does not always resolve this one.)
Yeah, I'd like an irrealis of some kind. But even if that means pointing
out something like "bIjatlhHa'chugh DuHoH ta', 'ach qaSbe' wanI'vam" I'd
accept it.
>> Adverbializing structure. Not necessarily a suffix or anything drastic
>> like that, but a sentence-structure that can be used to make verbs/clauses
>> adverbial. This would be something very nice.
>No. Absolutely not necessary. Anything like this *would* be drastic, and
>a sentence-as-subject device besides. Clause subordination is the way to
>go here.
Well, then, pointing out clause subordination to us. Only partly because
we may not have thought of it. Even though we have, it'd still be good to
get it from Okrand, if only to be able to flip open a HolQeD and show it to
newcomers when they complain that there's no way to do it or that the way
we do it is long-winded/non-intuitive/etc. Yes, it's whiny to go hiding in
Okrand's apron-strings all the time, but until we have a Klingon Akademio
there's no other way to issue unified "official" suggestions. Ditto with
"-Daq"; we'll always have new folks using it temporally, and we'd have a
harder time weaning them away from it were it not for Okrand's "qaStaHvIS
wa' ram loS SaD Hugh SIjlaH qetbogh loD".
>> How can nouns of time be extended? is "ben law'" OK for "many years ago"?
>> General info on how nouns of time fit in and when they can be unmarked and
>> when we need qaStaHvIS-like constructions.
>> *Anything* to help us with law'/puS constructions. How does it work with
>> pronouns? (jIH tIn law', SoH tIn puS? jItIn law', bItIn puS? What?)
>> How/where/if to add verb-suffixes for "because the captain is braver than
>> the commander"?
>I thought jIH tIn law', SoH tIn puS, and HoD yoH law'mo' la' yoH puSmo' were
>obvious, and have used them many times in my translations. Is there any reason
>why these should be dispreferred? The NOUN VERB law' construct has obviously
>nothing to do with conventional clauses, so I'm not that perturbed by the
>lack of verb agreement. Further, the law' and puS are the words governing
>the NOUN VERB complexes (ie these are law' and puS's arguments; law' and puS
>are the heads of their clauses); given Klingon head-adjunct marking, you'd
>expect law' and puS to get the suffixes.
Heh. I asked Glen Proechel his perspective on it once, he replied with the
same surprise that there was even a question. But he thought it was
"obviously" "jItIn law' bItIn puS". I'm not saying I agree with him (I
think I don't), but you can see how easy it is for there to be some massive
agreements without some central authority of some kind. Hell, I can see
room to argue that the verbs of quality in the construction are implicitly
nominalized, giving us "tInwIj law' tInlIj puS". The whole thing is so
anomolous who can be sure we even *can* put verb-suffixes anywhere? And is
it at all extensible? I once saw something like "HoD jaq law' la' joq
puSbe'" for "The commander is no less bold than the captain" or something.
And what about clauses as the elements, as in "He speaks Klingon better
than Kang"? This may be answered under the "-ghach" constroversy: can
"-ghach" nominalize whole clauses?
>Nick, who's missing his .sigs...
~mark