tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 20 00:56:28 1997
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Re: New suffix in KGT
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: New suffix in KGT
- Date: Wed, 20 Aug 97 04:04:01 UT
[email protected] on behalf of Terrence Donnelly wrote:
> I was surprised and pleased to see that Okrand has given us a >new verb
> suffix<:
> -la'/-luH, meaning "one can". It should now be possible to translate things
> like {ghopDap yoS chIjla'bogh} "navigable asteroid field". True, he says
> it's
> slang and should be avoided unless the speaker is very comfortable with
> Klingon culture, but, hey, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with it, and I bet
> you are, too.
This is the only sort of thing that worries me about the new book. Now that
we have slang ways to say things which needed to be recast before, people are
going to start relying on these slang terms, and never learn "proper" Klingon.
We must start learning *when* to use the special rules presented in KGT.
Fact 1: You can use {vay'} as the subject of the sentence, and Okrand himself
says this, with the sentence {jagh jonlaH vay'}. He says this sort of
phrasing is "not uncommon."
Fact 2: The made-up suffixes {-luH} and {-la'} are only used "on rare
occasion."
Fact 3: "No one accepts such constructions as grammatical."
Use these suffixes very, very infrequently. The new book proves, page after
page, that we're NOT "extremely comfortable with the nuances of Klingon
style." We've only just begun learning.
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97635.0