tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 08 19:30:09 1995
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Re: Apposition
On Wed, 8 Nov 1995, Marc Ruehlaender wrote:
> > We don't really know how to do apposition. {HoD} is a rank, and we
> > have seen that ranks follow names. {qIvo'rIt} is a class; apparently
> > classes precede names. This makes some sense; the {pagh} "belongs to"
> > the {qIvo'rIt} class, and owners precede what they own.
We now have two examples of Klingon apposition, {juHqo' Qo'noSvo'} (from
the Homeworld, Kronos) (SP1) and {tlhingan may'Duj, qItI'nga'} (Klingon
Battlecruiser, K'Tinga-Class) (S15)
It appears to me that apposition in Klingon appears much like it does in
English, however, if one of the nouns needs a Type 5 syntactic marker,
you still need to put it on the second noun, just like a N-N construction.
> ?? ranks are of course also classes, aren't they?
> qIvo'rIt pagh means "pagh, a qIvo'rIt class starship"
> qarghan HoD means "qarghan, a captain of the Klingon fleet"
I think these are examples of two different things. In {qIvo'rIt
pagh'e'} (K'Vort Class _Pagh_), I think this is an attributive N-N
construction, the first word is describing the second word, just as in
the English translation "K'Vort Class" is an attributive phrase modifying
the name "Pagh".
In {qarghan HoD} I think it is just the convention for stating a person's
rank. One could argue that these are two nouns in apposition, but I
don't think that is the case here.
> tlhIngan is most certainly a class, so would it be
> tlhIngan qarghan "qarghan, the Klingon"?
On S15 we have {tlhIngan may'Duj, qItI'nga'} (Klingon Battlecruiser,
K'Tinga-Class). Here the two nouns in apposition are separated by a
comma and appear in the same word order as in English.
>From looking at canon, it appears to me that when two nouns appear next to
each other in Klingon, they can be one of four things:
1. N-N possessive construction {qarghan patlh} (Kargan's rank)
2. N-N attributive construction {tlhIngan patlh} (a Klingon rank)
3. Apposition {yaS, qarghan} (the officer, Kargan)
4. Name & Rank {qarghan HoD} (Captain Kargan)
> (probably) "Dochlangan" Marc
I don't think names have anything to do with N-N constructions or apposition.
For example {rura' pente'} is just a name consisting of two words.
(I guess this is a fifth category to add to the list above.)
yoDtargh