tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 16 05:22:24 1994

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abstract "in" uses



>From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 17:01:50 -0500


>I have a question that I'm not sure about.

>-Daq is a noun suffix that denotes a relative location (in the room, at
>the store, etc).

>I recently wanted to ask a friend, "When will you be able to speak to me
>in Klingon?"

>I wasn't seriously considering "properness", so I simply said "ghorgh jIHDaq
>tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'"  (In retrospect, I'm not even really sure I put
>ghorgh in the right place; I did it off-the-cuff).

>But then I thought maybe I should have said "ghorgh tlhIngan HolDaq 
>chojatlh'a'", but this use of the "locative suffix" just didn't sound right...

>Which is right (or, as I think, neither is, so what would be correct)?

Well, the general take of the community is that "-Daq" really is and ought
to be spatial and not anything else.  That's what the dictionary says, it
indicates *location*.  So I'd definitely say that "tlhIngan HolDaq bIjatlh"
is wrong for "you speak in Klingon".   We have "qaStaHvIS X" for the "in"
of time ("in one night...") from the canon, and that's something else to
watch out for.

There is a little more support for "jIHDaq tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh", since
"-Daq" is also partly dative, meaning towards, but the better suffix would
be "-vaD".  So "ghorgh jIHvaD tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh?" works well for "when
willyou speak Klingon to me" (is there really a need for "in Klingon"?)
Note, btw, that there's no "-'a'" on the verb.  You have a question-word in
already, the "-'a'" is only for yes/no questions.

Also note that we have some support for double-objects, as evidenced by the
PK sentence "ghIchwIj DabochmoHchugh, ghIchlIj qanob" and also
"ro'qegh'Iwchab HInob", in which you have an object preceding a verb
conjugated for a *different* object, with the implication being that the
object implied in the verbal prefix is the indirect object.  What that
boils down to in plain talk is that "ro'qegh'Iwchab HInob" seems to be an
abbreviation for "jIHvaD ro'qegh'Iwchab yInob".  Thus, "ghorgh tlhIngan Hol
chojatlh?" would be an abbreviation for what I had above, and maybe neater.

In cases where you *really* need that abstract "in" or "with", we've been
advocating subortinate clasuses, and in fact this is somewhat implied in
Okrand's article in HolQeD 2:4.  So for "in Klingon" you might use
"tlhIngan Hol lo'taHvIS/jatlhtaHvIS/lo'DI'/etc", i.e. "while using/speaking
Klingon..."  You'll find this a powerful tool.

>...Paul

~mark



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