tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 29 21:17:54 1998
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Re: Word Order (KLBC)
- From: "Eric Andeen" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Word Order (KLBC)
- Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 22:15:41 -0700
- Importance: Normal
> OK I'm hopefully gettin the dictionary tomorrow.
> Just a quick question though:
>
> What's the word order like?
>
> Does Klingon have cases so the word order doesne matter,
> like Latin?
>
> Or is it more like English?
Basic Klingon word order is object-verb-subject. To say "the officer hit the
child", you would say:
puq qIp yaS.
puq - child
qIp - hit
yaS - officer
The other important thing to know about Klingon sentences is that the verb
always has to have a prefix. In the most common case - both the subject and
object are third person singular - the prefix is the "null prefix", but in
most other cases a two letter prefix goes in front of the verb. For example,
to say "I hit the child", you would say:
puq vIqIp jIH. -or- puq vIqIp.
<jIH> is a pronoun meaning "I/me", and <vI-> is the verb prefix for a first
person singular (I/me) subject and a third person singular (he/she/it)
object. Perhaps because the information is built into the verb prefix,
pronouns are almost always optional in Klingon, and don't get used very
much, so the second choice <puq vIqIp> would be heard much more often than
the first.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian