tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 19 00:56:51 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

RE: KLBC: The Klingon Hamlet? (also WOTD)



Qu'vatlh! QInwIj vIqonta'pa' bong vIlab. QInvamDaq mu'tlheghmey vIqelta'bogh
vInop.

> Maybe instead:
> "hardcover Hamlet" rurbe'chugh paqvam chay' pIm?
> = If it's not the same as the hardcover Hamlet then how's it different?
> (This seems clumsier but avoids using "different *from*".)

> [When I refer to "hardcover Hamlet" here, I am talking about
> "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, the Restored Klingon Version" which
> was put out by the KLI in 1996.]

pImba' paqmey, 'ach tlhoS rap mu'mey. loQ paq chu'vaD mu'mey luDublu' 'e'
vIpIH. 

>>> ghaH 'Iv <Dave Stern>'e'?
>>> Who is "Dave Stern"?  (Not sure if I have the word order right here.)
>> 
>> You don't. Unlike English, Klingon doesn't alter its word order at all
for
>> questions. <'Iv> and <nuq> go in exactly the same place their answer
would
>> go:
>> 
>> 'Iv ghaH <Dave Stern>'e'?
>> 
>> 'ej <Dave Stern> vISovbe' jIH.

> Hmm... I seem to recall <SoH 'Iv>, perhaps from PK?  I am thinking that
> it should be <'Iv SoH> according to what you wrote.

Ah, the famous <SoH 'Iv?>. This and another example - <Dochvam nuq?> - are
two times when the usual rules don't hold and the question word looks like
it is actually acting like a pronoun. We really don't know exactly when
<nuq> and <'Iv> can do this, but if you're using them in a whole sentence
which already has a pronoun, then the question words just go in their normal
places.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian


Back to archive top level