tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jun 18 22:38:07 1998
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Re: SuvwI'bom
chIch charghwI' Quv le'Daq jabbI'IDvam vIlabbe'. ghIQtaHvIS ghaH,
vISuj vIneHbe'. chaq cheghDI' maghoHqa'.
mujang charghwI':
>... One would presume that you think one
>of the two following English sentences is wrong. Please help me
>figure out which is wrong and why:
>
>"My name is Will."
>"Will is my name."
>
>This is, by my feeble understanding, exactly like saying:
>
>charghwI' 'oH pongwIj'e'.
>pongwIj 'oH charghwI''e'.
>
>Is one of these really WRONG? If so, please forgive my feeble
>memory for not remembering this and for forgetting why.
The two English sentences say the same thing. The word "is" here
indicates an equivalence between the two things. Either can be the
subject without changing the idea.
Your so-called "feeble understanding" treats {'oH} exactly like the
English "is", which I don't think is appropriate. I still maintain
that pronouns used as "to be" verbs act more like categorizers than
copulas. The specific item being identified is the subject, and the
identifying description is the object, at least under my own strict
interpretation of TKD section 6.3.
In Klingon, I am compelled to treat the questions {nuq 'oH ponglIj'e'}
and {ponglIj 'oH nuq'e'} differently. The first question asks me what
my name is, in the sense of asking for a description of it. The second
asks me what my is, in the sense of asking what can be described as my
name. I rarely dwell on this distinction, but I am always aware of it
when someone asks a question in the order opposite the way I "want" it.
-- ghunchu'wI'