tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 13 07:35:53 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Question words and others.
>Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 06:04:58 -0700
>From: "Matt 'I am man, hear me watch Seinfeld' Treyvaud" <[email protected]>
>I have noticed that a lot of people like to use the words qatlh, nuq etc.
>when saying things like 'I know what you mean' or 'I remember how it
>works'.
> Is this really allowed? It seems to me that the inclusion of a
>question mark in the dictionary definition sort of suggests that these
>words should not be used in a sentence that is not a question. Also the
>fact that in TKD Okrand doesn't specifically allow it makes me worry.
I can tell you immediately and firmly. We don't know.
You're right that the fact that question-words and relative pronouns are
the same in English does not mean we can use the same in Klingon. Trouble
is, we don't have much in the way of relatives in Klingon.
We have been using them this way, though, but not out of blind aping of
English usage. There is a method to our madness. We consider it a normal
sentence-as-object construction, with perhaps a slightly idiomatic usage.
"I know what you intend" becomes "What do you intend? I know that." That
is, a rhetorical question used as an object (nuq DaHech 'e' vISov). So
we're not really saying that "nuq" is anything other than a question word,
we're just using the sentence-as-object construction to make it work. Of
course, this is a lousy casting anyway; a better one would likely be "Doch
DaHechbogh vISov". But this recasting is not always possible, as in "I
remember how it works" (hmmm... I suppose you could/should say "I remember
the method it uses in order to function"/QapmeH mIw lo'bogh vIqaw). Well,
there *are* cases where it's not possible to recast this way. I think.
Sometimes.
Thinking this way, you can see a way to do something else: "I don't know if
he's arrived." Using the above logic, you wouldn't use -chugh but rather
translate "Has he arrived? I don't know that."/pawpu''a' 'e' vISovbe'.
~mark