tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 22 07:13:59 1994

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Re: qaD vIjang: leng'a'

Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Mark E. Shoulson jay'?

[A fore-note. I did not realise my past disagreements with Qanqor disqualified
me from making any comment on his grammar. I also fail to see why discussion
on his grammaticality, in particular, should not happen in public. Plus, I
had actually managed to forget the whole acrimony thing; dunno how it looks
from out there. And with my brow somewhat knotted, I proceed...]

=>> [muqaDpu'mo' charghwI', naDev 'oH lut'e' --HoD Qanqor]
=>I take it you realise that "Here's the story" is an Anglicism, and this
=>actually says "the story is here". "DaH lutvetlh vIja'" is what I would say.
=Welllll, we do have "naDev bIHtaH" for "here they are" in PK.  I don't like
=a bare "naDev" for the Anglicism "here", standing alone, but used in a
=sentence it's less bad.  It still sounds English-y in this case, but not
=very much.

I dunno, Mark. Listen to it. "They are here" sort of works for "Here they
are". But "the story is here" for "here's the story"? I'm not at all sure
it works. (Not that I feel that much hesitation about speaking Klingon better 
than Okrand, but that's an old tale too ;) .

=Um, he never said "Doy'".  He said "Doj".  This makes *far* more sense.  

I guess I was reading my own prose too much. ;) Oops.

=I thought "loprupchoH" worked fine when I read it at first.  

Nah. -choH is an instantaneous thing, surely. "It took three days to start
to be ready to celebrate"? Hm. It actually does make sense in English ;) ,
and I guess I'm thinking of the Esperanto ek- (before anyone complains,
Esperanto has an affix denoting start of an action; English doesn't.) I
think it's odd to say you're spending three days loprupchoHtaHvIS; if you're
spending three days *in order to start being ready", it makes more sense to
spend them loprupmeH, or even lopchoHmeH.

="ghIr" may be overly idiomatic, though.  

No question of it. "To Descend"? The best way of arresting such calqued
idiomaticisms is to use a synonym in the English, and see if it works.

=You misread again, Nick.  The bit with the scrolls was last sentence.
=Here, they're sacrificing the *altar* (note the well-used "-'e'" on it: it
=was the altar we sacrificed).

Oh. Yeah. Apologies again.

=>ngeb. "altar" --- lalDan nob yaH. sacrifice (n) --- lalDan nob; meQbogh nob.
=>glass bowl --- *SIlIqon* HIvje''a'. sacred scroll --- qatbogh ghItlh quv.
=>sacrifice (v) --- lalDanvaD nob. paper towel --- Say'moHbogh nav. window
=>(as I translated it in _Much Ado_) --- lojmItHom.

=Watch it with these.  Neologisms make endless sense in *retrospect*, but
=when you're presented with one out of the blue they're far harder.  

This may be a reason people first exposed to my text find it so difficult:
I use these all the time. I'm not sure they couldn't be cracked on fresh
reading, though. After all, I *have* used "altar", "sacrifice" and "window"
before; I'm *relying* on them being intelligible. I am convinced Klingon
*does* have the resources to say most things you'd ever want to, and that
not enough people appreciate this, being hesitant to coin such neologisms.
At least I think them worth a try.

=>> "altar" chu' taghmeH 'utbej tay'a'.  
=>My understanding of the TKD entries, that subsequent definitions illuminate
=>previous, and that thus "tagh" means "initiate" *as in* "begin a process"
=>is at variance with yours. I would say Sugh, but of course that wasn't
=>intended for inanimates either.
=I like "Sugh"; I'm not sure "tagh" is bad.

I start an altar? Mi komencas altaron? Well, it does depend on how you read
TKD.

=>> tIqghach javmaH jav vatlhvI' wIlengpu'!  numer De'vam! toH, John
=>> Lipinski jup'e' ponglu'bogh wIghaj, 
=>No. Klingon does not, to our knowledge, have double object constructions,
=>so this can only mean "we have J.L.'s friend who is named." You'd need
=>to say something like "pa' jup wIghaj. J.L. 'oH pongDaj/ ghaHvaD "J.L."
=>ponglu'")
=This is verb-in-apposition stuff, which is, granted, under discussion.
=Would it help if they both had "-'e'" on them, so they couldn't be
=noun-noun constructions?

No, it's not apposition. Apposition is "I called my brother, the butcher" =
= "I called my brother. I called the butcher". (Equivalent as far as truth
conditions are concerned.) "I called him Joe" is not equivalent to "I
called him. I called Joe." The two nouns are not fulfilling the same
semantic role; one is a patient, the other is probably an instrument. You
can't say "I called him, you know, *Joe*" (which *is* an apposition) to 
mean "I called him Joe". So this cannot be handled by apposition.

=>>Nancy rI' 'e' nIDmeH Rob rut mamev, 'ach not tu'laHbe'.  
=>We often ceased? Anglicism. As far as we know in canon, you have to stop
=>doing *something*; I initially assumed you were preventing R from calling
=>N. "'e' nIDmeH R, maleng rut 'e' mamev."
=Yeah, actually it did look like they were stopping Rob from calling at
=first glance.  'Course, it'd have to be "wImev"... (in your sentence as
=well)

In fact, the ma- in the original makes it more palatable for "stop [going]", 
but I think it would be clearer if "maleng 'e' wImev" was used.

=>> KingDaq maghoS.  pawDI' Soj ngevbogh be''e' wIghom, 
=>mapawDI'? The waitress could be both met and arriving, but that's an odd
=>reading.
=No, this is okay: when the *food* arrived, we met the *waitress*.  Maybe if
=there were a commn, "pawDI' Soj, ngevbogh ..."  Hrrm, if that were the
=meaning, Krankor probably wouldn't have used "be''e'".  Ah, I see: when
=*she* arrived, we met the waitress.  Cataphora.  Are you becoming afraid of
=it too?

Not at all. What I was nonplussed by was the fact that the subject of the
subordinate clause is deleted because of being coindexed with the *object*
of the main clause. Very odd in human language, where it is coindexed
*subjects* that are deleted ("he went and [he] saw"). What Qanqor has is
grammatical, but we both had to do double-takes with it; I suggest a "ghaH"
inserted would make the clause smoother.

=>Proechel's kin terms are as good as any (at least, they've yet to be condemned
=>in HolQeD's pages): loDnI''a'.
=Here as above in places I didn't comment: neologisms are something to be
=awfully careful about.  They only make sense in retrospect.

Proechel's terms, at least, have already been documented in HolQeD; they would
be recognisable to any of its readers.

Cool. I mean, don't get me wrong, it *is* a good saga; I just wouldn't want
it published anywhere without the grammar ironed out.

-- 
Nick.

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