tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 15 19:30:39 1994
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Re: 2 questions[D
For Aaron Broadwell & other newbies to this list:
My name is charghwI' and I am the Beginner's Grammarian (BG) for
this list. It is a rotating, temporary post. There are two
permanent, general grammarians as well. Krankor started the
list in the first place and ~mark was asked to fill in for a
time while Krankor was away and did such a good job that he is
now a second permanent grammarian.
If you are new here and want specific attention as a new
speaker of Klingon, we've arranged a sort of
list-within-a-list, or a focus group called KLBC, the first
three letters standing for Klingon Language Beginners', and the
last letter standing for either Conversation, Conference or
Club, according to differing recollections. This group begins
their post with "KLBC:" in the SUBJECT header.
When others with more experience decide to pick up a topic
introduced by a beginner and expand on it, they are supposed to
delete the KLBC reference from the header.
The main idea is that beginners become overwhelmed (or are
otherwise disinterested) in the longer, more intensive
discussions of the more experienced members of the list, so
they can pay more attention to the KLBC marked messages, while
the experienced members can similarly skip the KLBC messages,
or read them, as their mood and work load dictate.
It's my job to answer all KLBC tagged messages. ~mark and
Krankor will correct me when I'm wrong or when they have
something additional to note about the message (as will just
about anybody else, for that matter).
Anyway, back to YOUR message, since you call yourself a newbie:
According to [email protected]:
>
> > Niall Hosking <[email protected]> asks:
> >
> > >With:
> > >How do you say "with" in the sense "I hit him with a rock"?
...
> Please forgive a speculation from an absolute newbie to this
> list, but if thlIngan Hol is like Terran languages, then the usual way
> to express instrumental 'with' is through some form of the verb
> 'take'.
>
> I would suggest
>
> nagh vI-tlhap ('ej?) vI-qIp-pu'.
> rock I:it-take & I:him-hit-perfective
> (I took a rock and hit him.)
Just to catch up on conventions of the list, you don't need to
hyphenate between syllables. These are whole words. Also, while
lines of text only in one language are simply entered, if we
mix English and {tlhIngan} words, we tend to use curly braces
to mark the Klingon words and something else for English. Some
use quotes. Some don't like quotes because they look too much
like glottal stops and use square brackets, or whatever.
As for {'ej}, yes, in this instance, if you want this to be one
sentence, you need it. Otherwise, we have a sentence with two
main verbs, and that's a no-no. Also, you might want to review
the aspect marker bit. People often take that to mean tense,
though as a linguist, I'm sure you know better, but in this
case, you indicate that you have completed the act of hitting,
but you don't indicate that you completed the act of taking. I
would expect:
nagh vItlhap 'ej vIqIp. "I had taken the rock and I hit him."
The act of taking must be complete before the act of hitting
can occur.
In any case, this is a new idea, never expressed on this list
before. Nobody thought of using the verb "take". This will
certainly inspire further comment. I'll be interested in how
this goes. I do see it as idiomatic (which is why nobody here
thought of it), but perhaps a common enough idiom in different
languages that it may diserve to become idiomatic to Klingon.
What do others think?
> The question marks around /'ej/ indicate some uncertainty on my part.
> Most languages with this sort of construction would use a participial
> form of the verb 'take', i.e. "Taking a rock, I hit him". But it's
> not clear to me from reading TKD how to form the equivalent of
> participles.
I don't think there is anything here we can use in Klingon.
> And since I've butted in to this discussion, let me introduce
> myself. I am a professor of linguistics at SUNY-Albany. I'm
> considering offering a short course on thlIngan Hol (and possibly
> other invented languages, like Tolkien's) sometime next year with the
> aim of showing students that grammar, invented or naturally occurring,
> can be interesting and worthy of discussion. At this point, I've read
> Okrand's book, but I'm otherwise new to the Klingon world. I look
> forward to learning from you all.
majQa'! Proud to have you aboard! I might heavily recommend
getting Okrand's two audio tapes as well, Conversational
Klingon (CK) and Power Klingon (PK), both by the same publisher
as TKD (The Klingon Dictionary). Here, you can hear Okrand
pronouncing the language as it should be spoken, instead of the
way the actors hack at it.
You might enjoy the movies which include Kllingon language as
well, ST1, ST3, ST5 and ST6. Recognize that 5 probably does not
deserve to be on the list.
And last, but PROFOUNDLY not least, there is HolQeD, the
quarterly publication of the Klingon Language
Institute, founded by Dr. Lawrence Schoen ([email protected] or
P.O. Box 634, Flourtown PA 19031-0634). For less than $20 per
year, you, too can get the scholarly writing writings of the
most authoritative klingonists this side of Qo'noS. You'll get
any new vocabulary from Okrand and clarifications on grammar
points from him as well, and if you hang in there, you'll get
details on how to attend the second annual qep'a' in
Philadelphia next year.
> ******************************************************************************
> Aaron Broadwell | `To anyone who finds that grammar is a
> Dept. of Anthropology | worthless finicking with trifles, I
> Program in Linguistics and | would reply that life consists of
> Cognitive Science | little things; the important matter is
> Albany, NY 12222 | to see them largely' -- Jespersen, 1925
> [email protected] |
> ******************************************************************************
>
I *LIKE* your sig.
charghwI'