tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 08 16:51:47 1997
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Re: loDvam ghaH 'Iv'e' ?
ja' SuSvaj:
>There is nothing wrong with his sentence. In Klingon either "loDvam ghaH
>'Iv'e'" or "'Iv ghaH loDvam'e'" are both grammatical. But perhapse this
>issue should be tackled by the grammarians.
I've always tried to treat "to be" pronouns as indicating something other
than equivalence. For that, we have {rap} and {nIb}. The way I prefer to
interpret them yields something like "is a/the" instead of just "is".
'ejDo' 'oH 'entepray''e'. _Enterprise_ is a starship.
It doesn't work quite the same the other way around:
'enterpray''e' 'oH 'ejDo''e'. A starship is the _Enterprise_.
One can always find situations where this second order is appropriate. If,
for instance, a specific starship has been singled out for consideration,
on might say "As for the starship, it is the _Enterprise_." While it is
indeed just as grammatical as "As for the _Enterprise_, it is a starship",
it does not have anything like the same meaning.
So I'd choose between {loDvam ghaH 'Iv'e'} and {'Iv ghaH loDvam'e'} based
on the desired pattern of the answer. In this case, I think the latter is
more appropriate; the answer I give is {nuv vISovbe'bogh ghaH loDvam'e'.}
-- ghunchu'wI'