tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 11 06:51:58 1996

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Re: Time (Out)



On Sat, 9 Mar 1996, William H. Martin wrote:

> If the oddity of Okrand's using both word orders (SoH 'Iv} and
> {'Iv SoH} in various places is cause to conclude that {'Iv} is
> being used as the verb, well, I would tend to just think Okrand
> wasn't really careful about this one and did not necessarily
> intend to give free reign to the use of the question word as a
> verb.

There's also /Dochvam nuq/, used repeatedly in CK.  Only way to slice 
this is with /nuq/ as a verb.  Perhaps it's not conclusive evidence, but 
it's corroborating.

> If it were established that {nuq} and {'Iv} could be used as
> verbs, then it would be a short jump to have {nuq} be used
> adjectivally to function as "which" in the way many people here
> have tried, but at this point I really can't see that as valid
> without Okrand's canon backing it up.

Hmm, assuming them as pronouns-as-verbs, could one say /Duj 'Iv/ for 
"whose ship"?  Because if we'll admit /Duj nuq/ for "which ship", we're 
stuck with /Duj 'Iv/ as well.  Maybe that's a good thing; but it sounds 
ill-formed to my tender ear.  

Wow, let's keep going.  Will we admit /wanI' ghorgh/, /meq qatlh/, and 
/Daq nuqDaq/ as well?  Granted, it's hard to imagine what the English 
counterparts would be, but they'd be *syntactically* correct in Klingon 
(if question words as a category can function as pronouns-as-verbs).  The 
question remains to whether they'd make any semantic sense.

Of course, the status of the question words still needs to be addressed,
but it's interesting to speculate. 

> > -- ghunchu'wI'
> 
> charghwI'

--Holtej


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