tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 15 07:16:05 1995
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Re: {-Daq} and "to be" (was Re: Klingon on IRC)
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:18:54 -0800
>From: [email protected]
>In a message dated 95-12-14 03:25:16 EST, HomDoq writes:
>> I understand the intended meaning perfectly, but I'm not convinced that
>>> the Klingon is correct. Replace {SuvwI' bIr chaH} with {qagh Sop} to get
>>> {*Maine*Daq qagh Sop SuvwI' Hoch} "All warriors eat worms in Maine." This
>>> is NOT the same idea as "In Maine, all warriors eat worms." I'm pretty
>>> sure that "In Maine, something happens" cannot be translated simply as
>>> {*Maine*Daq qaS vay'}. Maybe "something which is in Maine happens."
>>> How about {SuvwI' bIr chaH *Maine*Daq chaHbogh SuvwI' Hoch'e'}?
>>>
>>I disagree... to me, if "Sentence" can stand alone,
>>
>>Location-Daq Sentence
>>
>>means exactly "Sentence in/at Location", i.e.
>>{*Maine*Daq qagh Sop SuwI' Hoch} means
>>"In Maine,(!) all warriors eat worms." If you
>>want to say "While a warrior is in Maine, he
>>will eat worms." you should, indeed, say so:
>>{*Maine*Daq ghaHtahvIS SuvwI''e' qagh Sop}
>>(I hope I didn't fumble...)
>>
>> HomDoq
>>
>>--
>>> {*Maine*Daq qaS vay'}. is my problem.
>While I see the Subject always being AT the location indicated by the Type 5
>{-Daq}, and much discussion has been posted coming to the conclusion that we
>can add the Type 5 {-'e'} to the Object to indicate its being AT the
>location, I must disagree with using {vay'} as the Subject of {qaS}. I
>prefer {wanI'}.
>This gives: *Maine*Daq qaS wanI'
>The sentence indicates that the Subject {wanI'} occurs in Maine. {*Maine*Daq
>yaS'e' legh puq} is the way I say "The child sees the officer [who is] in
>Maine."
I don't see any evidence anywhere that -'e' works that way, nor do I recall
any discussion like that which you mentioned. Near as I can tell from
Okrand's examples, "-Daq" tends generally to work on the language as a
whole: "DujDaq qaS wanI'" means that the event happens on the ship, and
DujDaq yaS legh puq" means that the seeing takes place on the
ship... generally. But there's some ambiguity: as someone reminded me,
Okrand said in his interview that the joke that goes "Yesterday morning I
shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know"
works as well in Klingon as it does in English. The joke relies on the
ambiguity of scope of the locative: does "in my pajamas" apply to the
shooting as a whole (both of us were there), to the subject (the "usual"
meaning, in this case) or the object? I'd say that in most sentences, a
locative like this tends to apply to the sentence as a whole, but need
not. I have never seen or heard of any claim that "*Maine*Daq yaS'e' legh
puq" means specifically that the officer is in Maine. The sentence is
correct, but I don't think it requires that meaning.
>This also means we do not have to convolute the sentence into {*Maine*Daq
>ghaHtaHbogh yaS legh puq}.
Not unless we have a deepseated need to be unambiguous. But your "-'e'"
method is unattested, so far as I know.
>peHruS
~mark