tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 29 08:06:52 1997

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RE: KLBC: Practicing...



jatlh mIqIraH:

> > tlhIngan Hol mu'ghom yIlaD.
> > mu' chu' yISam.
> > mu'tlhegh yI'ogh 'ej mu' chu' yIlo'.
> > mu' yIqawqu'.
> > Hoch jaj latlh yISam 'ej yIlo'.
> > tugh Hoch mu'mey DaSov!
> 
> jItul.

{jItul} means that you hope, and the hoping is done in general.  If you are 
referring to my previous sentence, you can use {'e'}:

'e' vItul.

Whether it is all right to reference another's sentence this way is not 
certain, but it is a logical extension which *I* don't have a problem with.

> Qatlh 'oH tlhIngan Hol vIghoj.

In English, when one uses an adjective, you will use "to be" to help you out.  
"Klingon *is* difficult."  But in Klingon, you don't have adjectives.  You 
have verbs which perform that role.  And many of the verbs, like {Qatlh} have 
"be" built-in; {Qatlh} is "be difficult."  So, you cannot use a pronoun like 
this!

If you want to say "Klingon is difficult," say

Qatlh tlhIngan Hol.

Now you want to say you have learned that Klingon is difficult.  Well, "I 
learned it." is {vIghoj}.  The "it" is the "that" of the sentence-as-object 
pronoun.  All of the previous sentence, {Qatlh tlhIngan Hol} fits inside 
{'e'}.  The end result:

Qatlh tlhIngan Hol 'e' vIghoj.
I learned that Klingon is difficult.

Actually, the sentence might be better if you used an aspect suffix, {-pu'}.  
However, though the suffix appears to belong on {vIghoj}, TKD forbids us from 
putting it on the second verb, but tells us to put it on the first.  We get:

Qatlhpu' tlhIngan Hol 'e' vIghoj.

> lugh 'oH mu'tlheghvam 'e' vISovbe'bej.

Fixing the pronoun problem again:

lugh mu'tlheghvam 'e' vISovbe'bej.
I definitely don't know that this sentence is correct.

Did you mean that you "definitely don't know"?  Perhaps you meant this:

lugh mu'tlheghvam 'e' vISovchu'be'
I don't completely know that this sentence is correct.

> chay' vIjatlh?

bIQaghbej, 'ach bIghojmeH bIQaghnIS.

Qatlhbe' tlhIngan Hol.
pIm neH.
loQ mu'mey pab je lughojlu'DI', ngeDqu'.
DIvI' Hol Qatlh law' tlhIngan Hol Qatlh puS.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97242.0


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