tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 19 13:54:51 1995
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Re: easy sentences
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: easy sentences
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 95 16:54:03 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Marc Ruehlaender" at Jan 19, 95 4:11 am
According to Marc Ruehlaender:
>
> > > > > > > 8. It was a pity the weather was so bad.
> > > > > > > QaHHa'laHpu' SuSmey. vaj moghnISlu'.
> >
> > Note that your English contains no sense of perfective. It DOES
> > contain past tense, but Klingon doesn't deal with tense except
> > by context or time stamp, which you could think of as a
> > temporal locative. Anyway, {-choH} indicates this change of
> > state that you sound like you are seeking. Perhaps you like:
> >
> > matlhetlhqa'laHpa' nuQaHHa'choH SuS.
> >
> > Before we could progress again, the wind changed to hinder us.
> >
> I'm not sure that I made myself clear (sigh-)
> I try to explain, what I wanted the suffixes to express:
> -Ha' a change from QaHlaH to QaHlaHbe'
> -laH well, "help" -> "helpful"
> -pu' the change indicated by -Ha'
> is completed. (I know the difference
> between tense and aspect - though
> I'm not to say I mastered it :-)
Does {-choH} address your need to express the change of state
of the wind? I think that is specifically what {-choH} was
built to do.
> (I don't know what you mean by "time stamp")
At the beginning of a Klingon sentence, you can make a
reference to a time when the verb happened. It can be a time
word, like wa'Hu', or a dependent clause, like qaHoHpa'. It is
a time stamp in the sense that it tells you what time the main
verb is happening. This is as close to tense as Klingon gets.
Okrand explains this better on the audio tape Conversational
Klingon than he does in TKD. He says something like,
"Yesterday, I was hungry. Today, I am thirsty. Tomorrow, I will
be tired." In all three cases, tense was only indicated by
wa'Hu', DaHjaj and wa'leS. None involved aspect.
> > In HolQeD vol 2, number 4, Okrand stated that {muD} could be
> > used to describe the weather.
> >
> like in DaHjaj QaQ muD?
Exactly.
...
> > I've been rather assertive and
> > confrontational in expressing my opinions lately. I hope this
> > does not complicate the acceptance of valid points I intend to
> > offer.
> >
> Not at all! I'm very glad to be able to talk things
> over with you.
maj.
> mu'tlhegh ngeDlaw' DIja'chuqmo' matay'taHvIS jIQuchqu'neS.
> (Doesn't make much sense I suspect)
Well, I understand it, though it does have a couple
controversial points. First, I could be wrong, but I don't
think we can use verbal suffixes other than {-qu'} and {-be'}
on verbs being used adjectivally. TKD only says {-qu'} can be
used and we fought about this for a long time. People wanted to
be able to use {-be'} as well.
Then on the Conversational Klingon audio tape (often called CK
for short), Okrand referred to ten useless tribbles: wa'maH
yIHmey lI'be'.
Meanwhile, if you could use any verbal suffix you wanted on
verbs used adjectivally, then Klingon sentences could EASILY
become illegible.
Your second problem is that the rules about verbs with {-chuq}
conflict with our desire to use ja'chuq as a transitive verb
"discuss". This is on most people's short list of points we
want Okrand to clarify.
In other words, your sentence MAY be PERFECT, but on those two
points, we have not confirmed that your constructions are legal.
> Marc 'Doychlangan'
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Marc Ruehlaender [email protected]
> Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
charghwI'
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