tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 30 06:15:47 1998
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Re: Word Order (KLBC)
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Word Order (KLBC)
- Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:15:46 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
Just adding to an excellent explanation:
On Tue, 29 Dec 1998 21:31:20 -0800 (PST) Eric Andeen
<[email protected]> wrote:
> > OK I'm hopefully gettin the dictionary tomorrow.
> > Just a quick question though:
> >
> > What's the word order like?...
...
> 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.
It is so common to omit the pronoun {jIH} here that the natural
interpretation for instances when it does appear is to emphasize
the pronoun. In other words, if I was just telling you what I
did, I'd say {puq vIqIp}, but if you just accused my friend of
hitting the child and I was correcting you, emphasizing that it
was me and not my friend who did it, I'd say, {puq vIqIp jIH.}
It is similar to, in English, saying, "It was ME who hit the
child."
> pagh
> Beginners' Grammarian
charghwI' 'utlh