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