tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 14 17:54:26 1998
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Re: SuvwI'bom
mujang Qov:
>...Are you one of those who
>doesn't accept {Qov jIH} either?
I accept it. I understand it as "I am a Qov" or maybe "I am the Qov."
It still doesn't feel the same to me as "I am Qov" does in English.
(And now Michael Dorn's voice is echoing in my brain saying "I am Worf!")
>> >I see the topicalized noun as saying, "Consider the noun, it is an X"
>> >or "Given the noun, what/who is it?"
>>
>> But you've changed the word order between these two, and I don't know
>> why you've done so. I see it as "Given the noun, it is what?"
>
>Oh, oh, I didn't mean to reflect the entire Klingon word order with my
>sentences, only the feeling of the set-off noun. The sentences I
>refer to are:
>X 'oH noun'e'
>and
>nuq 'oH noun'e'
>
>If I wrote them in Klingon order, the English would be backwards for me.
But, still, you've changed the English word order between the statement
and the question, and I don't know why.
>> >What does Okrand say? "As for the noun, they are X."
>
>There this one I was referring to
>puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e'
>
>> Exactly in the order I interpret it.
>
>Now that I have explained what I meant there, what do you think?
I think I've got a bee in my bonnet when it comes to asking questions
about names, that's what I think. :-/ It's only when someone says
{nuq 'oH ponglIj'e'} that my brain has to twist uncomfortably.
>nuq 'oH ponglIj'e' "As for you name, what is it?"
>ponglIj 'oH nuq'e' "As for what? it is your name" or "As for what, is
>it your name?"
>
>I think I agree with the person who said difficult to understand
>topicalized question words.
I have no difficulty with them. They just fit in the sentence where
the answer would be if it were a statement instead of a question.
>> Interestingly, it seems that the sentences that I interpret differently
>> are the ones asking about names. I generally tend to agree with the other
>> examples people have given. So maybe it's not the "to be"-ness that we
>> disagree about; maybe it's what we consider a name to be.
>
>chaq. When you hear /Qov jIH/? hat do you think?
This is probably not going to help, but I usually think of Danny Thomas
asking Dick Van Dyke "What is a Danny Thomas?"
It fits the conceptual pattern of "I am a [something]" in my mind. The
[something] slot is waiting for a noun that categorizes the subject of
the sentence. It's a small extra step for my mind to tweak it to accept
a mere label instead of a descriptive noun. I do take that step without
hesitation, but I am almost always consciously aware of it.
-- ghunchu'wI'