tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 01 09:30:08 1996

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Re: Order of 'oH + -'e'

peHruS writes:
>I may have to concede that the order of the equivalency sentence does not
>make any difference...
>1.  nuqDaq 'oH Qe' QaQ'e'
>2.  nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'

I don't think that {puchpa' 'oH nuqDaq'e'} makes much sense.  I'd consider
this to be a contradiction of your proposed concession, except that I also
don't think this usage of pronouns to mean "to be at a place" can really be
thought of as an "equivalency" statement.

>3.  veQDuj 'oH DujlIj'e'
>4.  puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e'  (This is p68 Sec 6.3, which states:  As for the
>prisoners, they are children.)

They do say somewhat the same thing when reversed, but with quite a different
emphasis:  "Your ship is a garbage scow" vs. "The garbage scow is your ship."
The first one is a powerful insult; the second is merely bad news. :-)
"The prisoners are children" says that each of the captured ones is a child.
"The children are prisoners" says that each child has been captured.  I don't
think they are the same idea.  In english, one can emphasize either word in
either sentence to alter the meaning from one to the other without changing
the word order, but in the Klingon sentence the subject of a "to be" sentence
is permanently emphasized.

>And from CK:
>1.  nuq 'oH Dochvam'e'

"As for this thing, it is what?"  The topic of discussion is the unknown
thing itself.  Reversing the order makes the question word the topic, and
that doesn't seem right to me.  It reminds me of the joke statement "What
is a four letter word which asks a question not involving time."

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

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