tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 05 09:07:45 1999

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Re: RE: KLBC: Multiple Adverbs



On Wed, 4 Aug 1999 21:03:55 -0400 Steven Boozer 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> DujHoD:
> > Can a Klingon sentence have more than one adverb?
> > For example, can I say:
> >   nom batlh HIv.
> >   He/she/it/they attacked quickly and honorably.
> > Or do I have to rephrase it to the longer sentence:
> >   nom HIv 'ej batlh HIv.
> >   He/she/it/they attacked quickly and 
> >   he/she/it/they attacked honorably.
> 
> pagh: 
> : There is no reason to believe we can't have two adverbials in a sentence. I
> : do it all the time. Unfortunately, I can't think of a canon example with two
> : adverbials right now.
> 
> That's my cue...
> 
>   batlh maHeghbej 'ej yo' qIjDaq vavpu'ma' DImuv. pa' reH maSuvtaHqu' 
>   Then we die with honor and join our fathers in the Black Fleet where
>     we battle forever. (Anthem) 
> 
> {pa'} "there(abouts)" is a noun in Klingon, not an adverb as in English,
> though notice that it's in the adverbial slot at the head of the clause.

Good eye, but I don't think this quite works as two adverbials. 
{pa'} is acting as a locative, and while locatives in general 
may be considered to have an adverbial function, since they 
describe something about the action of the verb, in Klingon 
grammar, adverbials and locatives are quite distinct.
 
>   DaHjaj nom Soppu'
>   Today they ate quickly. TKD
> 
> {DaHjaj} is likewise a noun in Klingon.  But again, note its position in
> the sentence.

But it is acting as a time stamp, which is again grammatically 
distinct from adverbials, even though again they have an 
arbuably adverbial function. The weird part is that if {DaH} 
were used instead of {DaHjaj}, it would be an adverbial. I've 
never understood why any of the timestamp adverbials were not 
considered to be nouns: DaH, tugh, wej, qen. They seem so 
similar to DaHjaj, wa'leS, wa'Hu'. Even {reH} seems arbitrarily 
assigned as an adverb given the noun status of other time-stamp 
oriented words.
 
>   qen 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'? 
>   Recently, how many times has someone heard it? 
>   (i.e. "What time is it?") MO on st.klingon 2/99]
> 
> Hmmm... would {'arlogh} be considered an adverbial in Klingon?

Again, it certainly FUNCTIONS adverbially, but I strongly 
suspect that it is classified as a number word, like any of the 
other {-logh} suffixed numbers. It is also classified as a 
question word. I do not know for certain that it would 
additionally be classified as an adverb.
 
> DujHod's idea of repeating/rephrasing has been done by Okrand in the
> Hallmark BoP commercial:
> 
>   pIj maSuvpu', batlh maSuvpu' 'ej maQapbejta'!
>   In our many battles, we have fought with honor and achieved VICTORY!

This combination of examples tends to discourage the use of 
multiple adverbs. Bummer. I know I've used them many times. 
Meanwhile, in every example Okrand has used, he has gotten 
adverbial function out of words that are not adverbs so that 
there is never more than one adverb in a clause.

In Klingon, being so verb-centric, I can think of nothing else 
that is more distributed through different grammatical 
structures than the adverbial function. Most suffixes function 
adverbially. Adverbs do. Time stamps do. Locatives do. Dependent 
clauses do. Meanwhile, in each clause there appears to be only 
one slot for an adverb.

This fits the model of the suffix structure -- just like the 
suffixes of a type, there is one slot for them to go and there 
is a relatively small set of entries to go there. It is almost 
like adverbials are really Type 10 verb suffixes that have a 
special location before the verb and can't take the full set of 
rovers to modify them. They can only take {-Ha'}. Meanwhile, 
this is why there is the temptation to use {-qu'} and {-be'} on 
them. They really function like a suffix. Perhaps we really 
can't use two.
 
> (N.B. the Klingon punctuation is uncertain.  This may be two, or even
> three, short sentences in the script.)
> 
> Oddly, though, clear Okrandian examples of two adverbials at the head of a
> clause are very rare.  (There may be more in KGT; I still haven't
> transcribed all the examples therein.)  It may be a matter of one man's
> style, not grammar.  

Now, I'm REALLY curious. This is the sort of thing I'd expect to 
show up on one of the Skybox cards more than in KGT. I suspect 
Okrand would only write something complex enough to deal with 
this issue while writing descriptive paragraphs, like Skybox and 
not just sentence fragments, like most of KGT.
 
> -- 
> Voragh                       
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons 

charghwI' 'utlh



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