tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 02 17:48:43 1997

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: KLBC:Re:be'nI'HeywI'

At 04:47 PM 9/2/97 -0700, jeyD wrote:

>QoQwIj vI'IjtaHvIS pa'vo' jaH ghaH. 
>When I listen to my music my sister leaves the room

You've said "she" instead of "my sister" but no grammatical errors, assuming
'Ij to be transitive.  Consider using {vI'IjchoHDI'} instead of
{vI'IjtaHvIS} to say she leaves as soon as you start to listen, and not just
any time while you are listening.

>'ach wa'Hu' tay' lureHtaHmo' be'nI'wI' jupDaj je, pa'vo' jIjaH jIH muneH.	
>but yesturday,
>because my sister and her friend were -playing together- (I am not sure
>if this part is right. Also, can you use taH and mo' on the same verb?)
>she wanted ME to leave the room.

Your instincts are correct about there being a problem with "playing together."
We don't know of a Klingon adverb "together" so it has to be recast. I don't
see that information is lost if you drop the word "together".  

The {lu-} prefix would be appropriate if the two of them were playing something,
but there's no object, they were just playing, the they-no object prefix is
nothing.

{pa'vo' jIjaH jIH} Good use of jIH as the emphatic.  

{muneH} means "he/she/it/they wanted me".  I see why you have chosen it, to
translate "She wanted me to leave," but in Klingon you leaving is actually a
third person object.  "She wanted it" where "it" is your leaving. 

Because "she wanted it" takes the zero verb prefix, we introduce another
problem: {neH} also means "only."  {jIjaH jIH neH} could mean "only I went"
or "she wanted me to go."  Adding {ghaH} will show that {neH} is the verb,
not the adverb.  

'ach wa'Hu' reHtaHmo' be'nI'wI' jupDaj je, pa'vo' jIjaH jIH neH ghaH

Yes, you can use {-taH} (V7) and {-mo'} (V9) together, because they are not
the same verb type.  {-taH} was an excellent choice here, they were playing
before and possibly after the action of the sentence.  Definitely ongoing.

>jIratlhmo' QeH ghaH 'ej QoQwIj tIch ghaH.
>When I didn't leave(remained) she got mad and insulted my music.	

To express the idea that she became angry, changed from being not angry to
being angry, use the verb suffix {-choH}.  The repetition of ghaH is
unnecessary here and seems to stress unnaturally that she was getting angry.
The first ghaH could be resolving ambiguity over whether both girls got
angry or just your sister, but the second one makes it sound like you're
saying. "*She* insulted my music."  

jIratlhmo' QeHchoH ghaH 'ej QoQwIj tIch

I've three times alluded to this statement from TKD p. 52. "Pronouns may be
used as nouns, but only for emphasis or added clarity."  Look through TKW or
the useful expressions section in TKD and see how rarely the pronouns are
used.  

Qov  ([email protected])
Beginners' Grammarian

Back to archive top level