tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 06 20:35:40 1997

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Re: Question as object

(with slight amusement) Are we still talking about this?

ghItlh charghwI':

>Take the sentence {'Iv HoH HoD?} Note that it is a question. It
>translates as "Who did the captain kill?" but you say we don't
>need to worry about that. The wording is unimportant. Let's use
>it as the object of the verb "know", as 6.2.5 says we can do:
>
>'Iv HoH HoD 'e' vISov.
>
>"I know who did the captain kill?"

An interesting point too - if I am asking "Who did the captain kill?" and
then stating <'e' vISov> - don't you think other Klingons would think me
deceitful? Wouldn't they notice that I asked a question, and then expressed
that I already knew the answer? Would they not wonder why I had bothered to
ask? Might they become annoyed with my bothersome Terran droning? What
reason would they have not to violently prohibit my bothering them again
with such foolish talk?

See - it's true, questions are sentences. And yes, it is 'possible' that a
question sentence could serve as an object. But - and this is what folks
seem to miss - in order to do this we need to know how it'll be interpreted.
There's no reason it would be interpreted any differently than a statement
sentence as object. charghwI', others, and I have already demonstrated that
this interpretation is at best, very, very strange - most probably,
nonsense.

Now, let's look at it this way - How *do* we express the sentence "I know
who killed the captain."? Well, the basic sentence is "I know (him/her)" -
<vISov>. Who and whom are expressed using -bogh. "the person who killed the
captain" - <HoD HoHbogh ghot'e'> - now we get, by assembling the pieces -
<HoD HoHbogh ghot'e' vISov>. Plain And Simple.

Now, since this translates the concept SO WELL, my question for all of you
is this - Why find another way to do it? This way is unarguably correct,
while the QAO supposition is being argued against by the most experienced
Klingon speakers ever. Does this send a message to any of you? The relative
clause construction IS a superior tool for saying "I know who killed the
captain". Even if you were to allow for the QAO supposition to be
acceptable, the -bogh version is simply superior.

I can say "I have hunger." in English - but I say "I'm hungry.". Why?
Because it is a superior construction. The first is awkward - the second is
not. The first is an unnecessary complication of the thought. And this is at
least grammatically inarguable!

Why are we continuing to say "Gee, you know that sentence we all have been
saying one way perfectly legally? Well, let's try it this way!" even after
the argument has been so plainly refuted??

(We might as well get rid of those damn capital letters while we're at it -
surely small ones will do?)

Qermaq

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