tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 16 18:55:39 1995
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Re: TLHINGAN-HOL digest 262
On Mon, 16 Oct 1995, William H. Martin wrote:
> According to Matt Treyvaud:
>
> > Incidentally, do we know now how to handle {je}-ing more than two nouns?
> > If so... how is it done? (my money's still on listing them and putting
> > {je} at the end).
>
> Your suspicion is confirmed in the newest issue of HolQeD.
> Okrand lists a usual disruptor pistol, a power source conveyor
> and a long stick and uses just one {je} at the end. This does
> not establish that it is wrong to place an additional {je}
> after the first pair of nouns, though to do so is to tread on
> that thin ice of using grammatical constructions which conform
> to one's personal logic, but not to any rule or example in
> canon. Meanwhile, it DOES establish that it is correct to use
> only one {je} at the end of a list of nouns.
I've been puzzling over the construction of that sentence. Putting so
many nouns in a row is sure to cause some ambiguity. At first, I
thought it was three conjoined nouns too.
But where you saw:
<nISwI' HIch motlh> <HoS Hal qengwI'> <naQ tIq> je,
I thought it was:
<nISwI' HIch motlh> <HoS Hal> <qengwI' naQ tIq> je
Putting so may nouns in a row is sure to cause some ambiguity. However,
after reading the English translation, I don't think it's either of these.
The English refers to "an extended power supply stock", so I'm thinking
that this could really be just two nouns:
<nISwI' HIch motlh> <HoS Hal qengwI' naQ tIq> je
and perhaps the last part is actually a N-N-N-N construction meaning
"long power source carrier staff" (extended power supply stock).
Despite the ambiguity of this sentence, we do have another canon example
of three nouns being conjoined by putting {je} on the end. As Lawrence
has pointed out, the copyright notice printed on the cards in Klingon has
the symbols for trademark, registered trademark and copyright followed by
{je}:
{[superscript TM], [circle with an R inside], [circle with a C inside] je
tera' DIS wa'-Hut-Hut-loS Paramount Pictures.} ("Trademark, registered
trademark & copyright 1995 Paramount Pictures.)
> charghwI'
yoDtargh