tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 26 14:26:57 1999
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Re: KLBC: story
T'Lod:
: qaStaHvIS wa'maH vatlh DIS poH, rav legh SuvwI'.
pagh:
:> Grammatically this is fine, but it makes no sense in the context of
:> the story.
T'Lod:
: I just wanted to set a past tense setting for the story. I was unsure if
: I should use the Type 7 suffixes here. I thought they might somehow be
: inappropriate.
You're right. Type 7 suffixes are unnecessary for the simple past tense.
Just
put {wa'maH vatlh DIS poH} at the beginning of your sentence as a time
stamp if
you mean some (unspecified) time in the 10th century:
wa'maH vatlh DIS poH rav legh SuvwI'.
In the 10th century, a warrior saw a floor.
Thereafter, Type & suffixes refer to aspectual use in the context of the time
of the story.
wa'maH vatlh DIS poH wa'logh rav leghpu' SuvwI'.
Once in the 10th century, a warrior saw (has/had seen) a floor.
(i.e. he saw it one specific time)
{qaStaHvIS} is not needed. Officially, Okrand has used {vatlh DIS poH}
"century" twice in SkyBox card S15 (wherein it was also spelled {vatlh DISpoH}
- though this could be SkyBox's typo, not Okrand's; there is another typo on
the card).
qItI'nga Duj tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej HochHom lo'lu'taH
the K'Tinga-class remained in use for most of the 23rd century
tera' vatlh DISpoH cha'maH loS bong QongmeH qItI'nga Duj tI'ang
ghompu' DIvI' 'ejDo' 'entepray'
A sleeper ship of this [K'Tinga] class, the T'Ong, was encountered
in the 24th century by the USS Enterprise.
Unofficially, another example occurs in the 11/97 "communique" announcing the
opening of Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, which I suspect Okrand
wrote, though it hasn't been confirmed (hasn't anyone asked him about this
text
yet?):
tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH loS bIyIn jeSlaHpa' Hoch.
Be the first to journey to the 24th century.
Notice how he specified *Terran* centuries in all three, to refer to human
dates. Without {tera'} of course the reader would assume we are talking about
Klingon centuries - as you are in your story - if, in fact, Klingons even
measure time in centuries. Notice also that he used a simple time stamp
without {qaStaHvIS} "while it occurred" which implies, to me at least, that
you're talking about some activity that lasted throughout the whole century.
E.g.:
qaStaHvIS wa'maH vatlh DIS poH Qo'noSDaq may' law' SuvtaH tlhIngan SuvwI'pu'.
During the 10th century, Klingon warriors fought many battles on Kronos.
: <<ghobe'. porghDu' yInej.
:
:> Body parts get <-Du'>. Whole bodies get <-mey>.
:
: I thought porgh was considered a body part. Could porghDu' imply separated
: parts of a body?
Well, the plural of {porgh} is a matter of some debate. IIRC, Okrand has
never
actually referred to {porgh} in the plural, or in the singular for that
matter. pagh's view seems to be the consensus on the List. However,
"parts of
a body" can only be {porgh 'ay'Du'} - {porgh 'ay'mey} or would imply that the
body parts were "scattered all about", which might be appropriate to a poetic
description of a bloody battlefield with hacked off limbs strewn about.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons