tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 09 18:03:17 1999
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Re: KLBC: Imperative prefixes
>Mailing-List: contact [email protected]; run by ezmlm
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 20:04:18 EDT
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>In a message dated 8/6/1999 9:20:01 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
>[email protected] writes:
>
><<
> So long as you're wishing for weird imperatives, note also the Klingon
> lacks a "third-person imperative." That's for stuff like "let there be
> light" and such. When I think about it, Hebrew really does this, at least
> in "let there be light"; that verb-form is definitely third-person, and is
> definitely not indicative. But for other verbs I think it would just use
> (something identical to?) the future tense, like with firs-person stuff.
> Esperanto as usual uses its imperative, even for things we'd think more of
> as "-jaj"-like, like "they should be happy" or commands "let him enter".
> >>
>================
>wovlu' 'e' yIchaw'. 'el ghaH 'e' yIchaw'.
>
>Okay. The imperative is still to the second person, not to a third person.
>And, it takes two sentences (connected into one by the pronoun {'e'}). So, I
>see that Klingon can convey this concept, just without a third-person
>imperative.
This is like the letter I just answered a few minutes ago also. Yes, you
can say "permit him to enter," but that's an order TO SOMEONE to do
something specific (namely, to do some permission-granting). That's not
what I get when I hear "li eniru" in Esperanto, or "yavo" in Hebrew in a
setting like Esther 6:5. I'm not *really* talking to the audience, not
directly. I'm expressing a wish/command that reality behave in a certain
way. Oh, maybe there's some implication that somebody else, someone I'm
talking to, should take action to make it so, but it's really nowhere near
as strong as "I command you to permit him to enter." Even in English, in
the first example of "Let there be light," although there is a grammatical
need for the command to be given to someone, I don't think any native
speaker really hears this as God *ordering someone else* to *permit* light
to exist (theological problems aside: I'm sure many religious people would
take offense at the thought that God needed help somehow to perform the
creation (he couldn't do it himself), and whom would he be addressing
anyway, since nothing's been created yet? I am not directly addressing
these questions, so don't start in on theology on this list). It's simply
an order that light is to be. I suppose one might as easily translate this
type of construction as "wovnISlu'" or "'elnIS" or perhaps "wovlu' 'e'
vIpoQ"/"'el 'e' vIpoQ". Which I like rather better than "... 'e' yIchaw'"
BUT it's still not the same thing as the "third-person imperative" that I'm
after. And in all likelihood we can't get "the same thing" as that in
Klingon, and that's Just Fine: Klingon is NOT English or Hebrew or
Esperanto and expresses itself differently. English doesn't really have it
either; it sorta makes do with "Let there/him/it..." Esperanto does a
nicer job. There's nothing wrong with Klingon for not having a neat
expression of this concept.
>As to first-person plural imperative, not only does {Ha' + a hortatory-type
>sentence} work for me, often the first-person singular imperative {HI-} feels
>inclusive enough.
Really? So you'd say "Let's kill him!" as "HIHoH"? I'd be *mighty*
careful with that if I were you.
~mark