tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 12 01:35:53 1997

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Re: KLBC



At 14:01 97-10-11 -0700, qa'SuvwI' wrote:

}A very short story for you

majQa'.  mubelmoH lutmey.

}jaghwI' vIlegh  I saw my enemy
}ghaH vIqIp  I hit him

Do you know that the {ghaH} there is optional?  You could say simply {vIqIp}
and it would mean "I hit him" because it would be obvious from the preceding
sentence what the object was.

}vIHoHpu'  I have killed him
maj. You're paying attention to the difference between {vIHoH} "I killed
him" and {vIHoHpu'}.

}tun ghaH  He was soft
}verengan ghaH  He was Ferengi
maj.

}A question: Would <jaghwIj vIlegh> be an insult?

Using {-wIj} for a speech-capable being is very similar to using "it."  So
it could sound like a grammatical error--making you look stupid--or come out
as an deprecating comment, depending how it was down.  

wa'Hu' ghIrmoHwI' vIlIghtaHvIS ghu 'uchtaH be'.  loDvaD jatlh be'
�mInDu'Dajmo' vavlI' rur, qar'a'�.  jIjang 'e' vIbotlaHbe'.  jIjatlh "I
think it looks like Yoda."  Do'Ha' Haghbe' nuvpu'. 'ach *Yoda*'e' rurbejqu'!
muHoHrup loDnalwI'.
ghuvaD "it" jIjatlhmo' vItIchqu' jatlh ghaH.  

SKI: The above is an example of (a) how {-wIj} is insulting and (b) what not
to tell strangers about their infants, even if they DO look like Yoda. 


Qov     [email protected]
Beginners' Grammarian                 



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