tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 05 11:47:54 1996
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Re: a new clipped Klingon phrase - for your perusal
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: a new clipped Klingon phrase - for your perusal
- Date: Fri, 05 Jan 96 14:43:19 EST
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 5 Jan 1996 11:35:04 -0800. <[email protected]>
"Banger-Troll from Heck..." <[email protected]> writes:
\
\ yI'chop bite me! {roughly translated}
Not quite, for these reasons:
1. There's no {'} in the imperative prefix {yI-}; it's just {yIchop}, not
{yI'chop}.
2. {yIchop} can't mean "bite me!"; it can only mean "bite him!",
"bite her!", or "bite it!". "Bite me!" would be {HIchop}.
3. The fact that you're bothering at all with an imperative prefix makes it
not clipped. Clipped Klingon refers to a syntactic simplification of
the language; the clipped form would be just {chop}. In this form,
the identity of the bitee is no longer explicit; if it's not clear from
context, you have to use the non-clipped form.
You'd be better off reading the dictionary's grammatical sketch than
skimming the vocabulary and trying to plug-and-chug based on examples.
It's a lot to swallow, but if you make a start, then you can ask
questions here and the Beginner's Grammarian can help you understand
and apply what you've read.
-marqoS
--
Mark J. Reed
Email: [email protected] - Voice: +1 404 315 6296 x158 - Fax: +1 404 315 0293
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