tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 25 22:26:52 1994

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typical constructs

>From: Katrin Erk <[email protected]>
>Date: Tue, 24 May 94 17:40:31 +0200


>>On Tue, 24 May 1994 10:48:43 -0400, [email protected] (Mark E.
Shoulson) said:

>>>From: Katrin Erk <[email protected]>
>>>Date: Tue, 24 May 94 15:19:45 +0200


>>>I'd like to know what are typical language constucts in
>>>Klingon.


>> I find it easier to think in terms of purpose clauses
>> ("-meH") and causals ("-mo'"), and to change the way I think of tenses to
>> Klingon's aspect-marking as time goes on.

>> Er, it's hard to talk about this kind of thing in general; what kinds of
>> answers are you looking for?

>> ~mark


>That's exactly what I'm looking for: What kind of language
>constructions you have to think in in Klingon. That bit about purpose
>clauses and causals seems very interesting to me.
>What do you do with thoughts which in English would require
>complicated sentences, relative clauses over several lines etc.? Do
>you just break the sentence up? Which verb or noun suffixes do you use
>most often? Which other constructions do you use frequently?

Well, let's see.  "-bogh" is pretty common, especially in more formal
texts, which tend to have more relative clauses.  I find that a lot of
constructions people claim to be "difficult" in Klingon can be handled
quite well by proper understanding and use of "-DI'", "-meH", and "-mo'"
(these are the three top ones, I think).  So, as I said, "I am happy to see
you" works well as "qaleghmo' jIQuch" ("I am happy because I see you").
"-meH" gets a lot of usage for instrumentals (though I must admit I'm
responsible for some of the popularity of an admittedly inferior method of
using "-taHvIS" for this, before someone pointed out that "-meH" was
better).  So "I killed the Ferengi with the dagger" comes out quite well as
"verengan vIHoHmeH, taj vIlo'" ("In order to kill the Ferengi, I used the
dagger").  The other method was "taj vIlo'taHvIS, verengan vIHoH" ("while I
wqas using the knife, I killed the Ferengi").  This really isn't too bad,
since idiomatic use could make this perfectly sensible, but in most cases
"-meH" is much better.  "-DI'" also works well for relating two clauses.
As I noted in my article in HolQeD 2:4, the "as soon as" meaning of "-DI'"
implies, or at least leaves open the possibility of, a correlation between
the two clauses in a stronger way than "-taHvIS".  Many places where we use
"if" in English might come out well with "-DI'" in Klingon (though Klingon
does have "-chugh").

The other tried and true method for untangling phrases that otherwise
become hopelessly complex is simply to use two sentences.  I'm slowly
becoming more comfortable with this when it comes to those enormous
relative clauses that sometimes develop, or relative clauses with the heads
in unusual places or being used in odd ways in the sentence (e.g. I see the
ship because of which we attacked the Terrans.  This gets tricky to make
sense of if you try to make it a long "-bogh" phrase, and it's probably
simpler to recast as "I see the ship.  Because of that ship we attacked the
Terrans").

Basically, when I try to cast a concept in Klingon, I keep in mind how
Klingon expresses things.  I think in terms of purpose-clauses ("-meH"),
causes ("-mo'") and so on, and try to break out of the English view in
order to make the concept make sense in the Klingon view.

>btw., I tried to read a Shakespearean sonnet in Klingon and found it
>extremely difficult. The relative clause suffix -bogh appeared very
>often - what kinds of strange purposes can you use that for?

Well, as has been mentioned, the sonnets are pretty advanced stuff; even in
English you woudn't want to confuse Shakespearean sonnets with examples of
good, common, spoken English.  "-bogh" is *awfully* useful, but it can
become clunky.  English uses relative clauses pretty heavily, and it's easy
to find yourself doing the same in Klingon.  Any time you want to have a
noun that's described somehow, by anything except maybe an adjective, you
start using relatives (the ship I see, the captain whose hat I lost, the
people we're looking for, etc, etc.)  So they show up a lot.

>thanks a lot,
>   Katrin


~mark

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