tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 10 11:21:01 1999
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Re: KLBC: Complex sentences
At 08:07 PM 1/31/99, loD Doq wrote:
This is 10 days old, so it seems our BG missed it. Allow me to get the ball rolling. ("Fools rush in ..." I guess.)
: How should I say things like:
: "I see you run."
: "I want to eat."
: "I think you are stupid."
: "She says that she thinks she could do it."
: I just don't know how to structure these, vis., what verbs go where what
: suffixes to use and the like. Is there a set formula?
: [snip]
: these sentences have other sentences as objects, but not really. I mean,
: just look at the first one:
You almost figured it out for yourself. Yes, there is a formula: the sentence-as-object (SAO). Cf. TKD p.65f for an explanation of how this works.
: "I see" is <jIlegh> and "you run" is <bIqet>. But "I see you run"? Is it
: <bIqet jIlegh>? I don't think so. That just seems silly to me.
Good instincts. You connect the two verbs with the special topic pronouns {'e'} "that" and, less often, {net}. E.g.:
bIqet 'e' vIlegh.
I see you run. I see that you run.
Literally, "You run; I see that." Notice that you have to use {vI-} on the second verb because {'e'} is its object. Reversing the pronouns:
jIqet 'e' Dalegh.
You see me run. You see that I run.
There are, of course, a couple of wrinkles to this which are explained in TKD. Try doing the others yourself. Hint: {jatlh} "say" is what is known as a "verb of saying", one of those wrinkles I mentioned.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons