tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 07 23:53:18 1994
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Re: KLBC: Blood of the vanquished
On Wed, 7 Sep 1994, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
> Hu'tegh! nuq ja' R.B Franklin jay'?
Would I translate that as, "Dammit! What the hell did R.B. Franklin say?"
{{:-)
> [R. B. Franklin calls me Mr Nicholas.]
>
> Please, Mr Franklin. No need for that. :)
Okay, Nick.
> You can. But if you want to say "the bile that was defeated by the enemy?"
> (The convention launched by Krankor is to topicalise the relative clause head:
> jagh'e'... / HuH'e'...) And what about "the brother of the guard defeated by
> the prisoner?" 'avwI' jeybogh qama' loDnI''e'? 'avwI' jeybogh qama''e' loDnI'?
> 'avwI' jeybogh qama' loDnI'? Each of these have problems. It seems to me that,
> in general, Klingonists would simply avoid such complex N-Ns as more
> trouble than they're worth (as I've said, they're extraordinarily rare
> on the list.)
I'm not familiar with that convention, but if {-'e'} is used to identify
the subject of a relative clause, I think that would be a great idea.
Although the sentence is ambiguous in English (you can't tell whether the
guard or the brother was defeated) I think the following phrases are
clear in Klingon:
'avwI' jeybogh qama' loDnI'
The prisoner's brother, who defeated the guard subject: loDnI'
'avwI' loDnI' jeybogh qama'
The prisoner who defeated the guard's brother subject: qama'
qama' jeybogh 'avwI' loDnI'
The guard's brother, who defeated the prisoner subject: loDnI'
qama' loDnI' jeybogh 'avwI'
The guard who defeated the prisoner's brother subject: 'avwI'
In other word's, the suffix {-'e'} isn't required to determine who
defeats who. It's all determined by the word order.
On the other hand, I think it would be a good idea to use {-'e'} to
indicate the subject of a relative clause within a lenghty
sentence, just for ease of use. But even then, it probably isn't required.
wa'Hu' reghuluSDaq bIghHa' Hopvo' Duj QIHlu'pu'bogh nIHta' 'avwI' jeybogh
qama' loDni''e'.
Yesterday, the prisoner's brother, who defeated the guard, stole a
damaged ship from a remote prison on Regulus.
> =I also didn't understand Mr. Nicholas's statements about topic
> =constructions. In what context would {verengan'e' pu' vIngev} replace
> ={verenganvaD pu' vIngev}?
You previously indicated that you wanted to use {verengan'e' pu' vIngev}
to mean "As for the Ferengi, I sold [him] the phaser." But
unfortunately, that sentence already means "I sell the FERENGI's phaser."
{-'e'}, in this sentence, only serves to emphasize whose phaser you are
selling.
> In exactly the same contexts where verengan'e' vIHoH would replace verengan
> vIHoH. *If* verengan'e' pu' vIngev is acceptable. I'll leave it to charghwI'
> (as BG, and person who should be answering these questions :-)
I hope he checks my grammar and understanding as well. {{:-)
> about Klingon topicalisations, though I will point out again that what has
> happened in Klingon topicalisation seems to have happened mainly because
> most Klingonists don't know anything about topicalisation apart from what
> TKD says --- and TKD doesn't say much. (A Teach Yourself Japanese book
> should have enough in it for anyone out there to make sense of what Okrand
> means by topicalisation.)
I don't know much about topicalisation as well, but I do know a lot
about Japanese grammar. A descriptive-type Japanese sentence consists of
topic words <daimoku-go> and descriptive words <jojutsu-go>. A Japanese
sentence gives you a topic then gives you description about it. That's
just the way Japanese grammar works.
But comparing Japanese grammar with Klingon is comparing apples with
astroids. The structure of a Klingon sentence is object-verb-subject.
The grammatical relation of a word to the rest of the sentence is
determined by the word order, and the word order in Klingon is rather
rigid. I think that's where {-'e'} come in. In some languages, the
word order is flexible enough, that if you wanted to emphasize a word,
you could do so by changing the word order (like placing the emphasized
word at the front of the sentence for example). But you can't change the
word order in Klingon, so you need some other way to emphasize a word.
IMHO, that is the sole function of {-'e'}. {-'e'} can never be used make
a noun the subject of a sentence or clause, (if it isn't already) it
just calls attention to that particular word.
> Mr Nicholas.
yoDtargh