tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 05 10:09:21 1997

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Re: Analysis of new Skybox cards

[email protected] on behalf of charghwI' wrote:

> > S31 {Hegh bey}  Death Howl
> > 
> > A new word already!  Yea!  And, as Lawrence points out in his column
> > "The Return of Maltz", Marc's warped sense of humor is all too evident. 
> > {bey} appears to be a noun, meaning "a howl".
> 
> Meanwhile, by this logic, the word also means "display" since it 
> was used in a similar way on the Klingon CD as a separate word 
> always paired with another noun: {betleH bey, nuH bey, quv bey}. 
> Okrand has never shown this word alone. It seems difficult to 
> assume that it has a meaning alone [later I saw the example 
> below of beyHom, bey, bey'a'.

Nope, that's {bey'}, with the glottal stop.  Our new word is {bey} without a 
glottal stop.

> > {beyHom bey bey'a' jachtaH latlh tlhInganpu'.}
> > "The other Klingons cry out small howls, howls, great howls."
> > 
> > This is mega-weird.  If I didn't have the English text of the card I'd
> > be completely lost.  This is apparently how you express a series of
> > events through time...??????  I can see how he's thinking "crescendo"
> > here, but I'm not sure how I'd do this with other nouns.  There ought to
> > be a {je} on that list, oughtn't there?
> 
> Well, perhaps {je} is as optional with multiple nouns as {vaj} 
> is with {-chugh}. Similarly, things are clearer when it is 
> included. Since this shows three nouns with no conjunction, and 
> we've seen three nouns with one conjunction at the end, I'd 
> still be unsurprised if he puts in two conjunctions someday. He 
> has already put a conjunction between two nouns in ST5, but we 
> considered it a fluke and ignored it, since it clearly violated 
> the rules in TKD. Maybe conjuctions are just plain optional and 
> can go anywhere after the first noun? I'll stick to TKD rules 
> for now.
> 
> I'm not so sure about the crescendo thing. That's not how it 
> looks when they do it on the CD or TV show, and while verbs do 
> seem to follow each other like that to indicate time sequences, 
> we have not seen nouns do that, and the English translation does 
> not suggest that to me.

They start out humming or growling slightly, then raise their voices in a 
quick crescendo, topping off and maintaining that level.  {beyHom bey bey'a'} 
seems like a good representation to me.

I believe that this formation was done like this completely intentionally, 
without any {je}.

This sort of thing might be applicable to other musical terms, like {bomHom 
bom bom'a'}, and might be able to be reversed {bom'a' bom bomHom}.  I'd 
hesitate a lot before applying it to anything more general.

> > {chaq romuluSnganpu'vaD pIvghor cham lunobpu' tlhInganpu'.}
> > "Perhaps the Klingons gave warp drive technology to the Romulans."
> 
> Well, the first Romulan ships WERE Klingon birds of prey, after 
> all...

Before the Romulan-Klingon treaty, the Romulans used impulse power only.

qarbe'.  "Balance of Terror" wIbejtaHvIS romuluS may'Duj wIlegh.  not wa' 
wIleghpu'.  tlhInganpu' qelbogh lutmey puS'e' DIbej, 'ach not tlhIngan Duj 
DIlegh.  "The Enterprise Incident" wIbejtaHvIS, boq lucherta' tlhInganpu' 
romuluSnganpu' je.  DaH tlhIngan Duj DIlegh (D7 may'Duj DIleghlaw' 'ach So'wI' 
lujomlu'law'), 'ach romuluSngan ghaH Hoch beq'e'.

boq lucherpa', Hong neH lulo'laH romuluSnganpu'.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97510.4

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