tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 11 19:25:49 1996

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Re: KLBC> HaDIbaHpu' le' mach

>> {'e'} can't work that way; it stands for the *previous* sentence.

ter'eS writes:
>Well, that answers that.  You can't invert a sentence for emphasis, so a
>sentence like *{'e' vISov: qoH SoH} is not legal, right?

If you want to, you *can* transpose two sentences for emphasis.  You just
can't use {'e'} in the first one to refer to the second one.  Try instead
{ngoDvam vISov: qoH SoH}.

>My intention in this sentence was to avoid a literal object.  {Doch rap}
>seems too concrete to me; I think {Doch} should refer only to actual
>physical items.  {ta'} seems more goal-oriented than Pinky's question
>warrants.

One of the nifty tools I've found for recasting questions is to ask "how"
instead of "what".  TKD 6.4 gives {chay' jura'} "What are your orders?"
(page 70).  So one might ask {DaHjaj ram chay' mavang?} instead of asking
{DaHjaj ram nuq wIqaSmoH?}.  Pinky's question indeed is open-ended, with
no hint of a goal; but Brain's answer certainly deserves the use of {ta'}.

>So tell me this:
>
>Can you use a verb with {-bogh} by itself as an object?  That is, can
>{wIqaSmoHtaHbogh} mean "that which we are doing"?

There's no rule against it, but this usage is very unclear.  It could
as easily mean "we who keep making it happen."  If you're going to use
{qaSmoH}, then the "generic" object should probably be {wanI'}.

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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