tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 02 02:09:17 1997

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Re: KLBC: imperatives with {vaj}



At 10:19 PM 9/1/97 -0700, Dawut wrote:

>What is the consensus on using an imperative statement instead of an 
>"if" statement when using {vaj} "then, thus, so"?
>
>Would the following be correct, or need reconstruction as an "if/then" 
>sentence?
>
>DaH yIjatlh vaj qaHoH!  "Speak now or I will kill you." 

This comes closer to implying that I will kill when you have spoken than
that speaking will save your life.  I think it makes about as much sense as
"Speak now thus I kill you" -- i.e. it doesn't really make sense.

>Would this have to be:
>yIjatlhbe'chugh vaj qaHoH! "If you do not speak now, then I will kill 
>you"?

It should be {bIjatlhbe'chugh [vaj] qaHoH}.  The {vaj} is optional.
"If you don't talk" isn't an imperative statement so shouldn't have the
imperative prefix {yI-}.

You could use vaj with an imperative in this way: 
bIghungchugh vaj yISop - If you are hungry, then eat. 
qaHoH DaneHbe'chugh vaj DaH yIjatlh - If you don't want me to kill you then
speak now!

bI<something>be'chugh vaj bIHegh} is a fine cliche in Klingon: just learn to
love it.  Reminds me of qep'a' loSDIch: a TV crew wanted a few of us to say
"Watch Action News" in Klingon.  As {Action News yIbej} was pretty boring,
Krankor started to suggest, "Or {Action News bobejbe'chugh ...}" and the
rest of us instantly chimed in with "vaj SuHegh!" We then spent five minutes
trying to get it to come out as well on camera as it had spontaneously.

Qov  ([email protected])
Beginners' Grammarian



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