Re: ma'veq: It's official

["William H. Martin" <whm2m@server1.mail.virginia.edu>]

On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 10:10:00 -0800 (PST) Nancy Snyder 
<nsnyder1@nycap.rr.com> wrote:

> >>>: http://www.kingwoodcable.com/kdaq/index.htm
> >>
> >>ghay'cha'! pa'Daq vIjaHta'. QaQtaH 'oH 'ach moHaqmey mumISmoH 'e'
> vIQubpu'.
> >
> >
> >nuqjatlh? mumISmoH mu'meylIj'e'.
> 
> Translation: "What did you say? Your words confuse me!"
> 
> >"$#@%! I have gone to the room. It is being good, but prefixes;
> >I have thought that it confuses me."
> 
> No! You over translated it!

No! You screwed up the word order!

> It starts off with a general invective. Then it
> says "I have gone to the room", I was trying to say "I have gone there",
> but the former still makes absolute perfect sense. 

TKD p27-28. Read about {pa'}. In particular, it says, "{pa'Daq}, 
however, can mean only "in/to the room."

> Next, it says "It is
> good." You don't need to actually say the "being" part, that doesn't
> translate into english, the <-taH> is just there to enforce the the room is
> continuously good, as opposed to just good in general.

I'm sure the {-taH} is what forced him to say "is being". I'd 
tend to translate it as "It is continuously good," or "It 
continues to be good." You have to fudge this because the 
Klingon is smoothly expressing a shade of meaning that English 
can only express more awkwardly.

> Then I said, "but, I
> thought that prefixes confuse me." See, you mixed it up: it's not "but
> prefixes", the "prefixes" is the object that goes with the <mumISmoH> verb
> (they confuse me)! 

Look at your word order again. What is the subject of 
{mumISmoH}? Where do subjects go? Before or after verbs?
 
> >Whatever else is wrong with this, there's a rule on TKD page 66 that
> >tells us that we can't put an aspect (type 6) suffix on the second
> >verb of a Sentence as Object construction.
> 
> Secondly, I debate that I can't put <pu'> (a type 7 suffix) on <vIQub> to
> make it "I thought ot" as opposed to "I think it". That is just wrong!

If you are saying that you were wrong to do this, then you are 
correct. If you are saying it is wrong to suggest that you are 
wrong, then, well, you are wrong. As pointed out, TKD page 66 
rather clearly says that one of the arbitrary rules of Klingon 
grammar is that you can't do this.

Okrand has broken this rule a couple times, himself, so I 
suspect this is like "who" and "whom" in English. There is a 
right way to do it, and then there is the way a lot of people do 
it, which is to ignore the rule. But the rule is there, and when 
you break it, you are not grammatical and it is useless to argue 
otherwise.

If I ask, "Who did you pick as your roommate?" I just broke a 
rule in English. It is grammatically incorrect. I should have 
said, "Whom did you pick as your roommate?" A lot of people make 
this mistake and some argue that because it is a common error, 
English is changing so that rule doesn't count any more.

It's a weak argument, all the same. Yes, it is a common mistake, 
but yes, it still is a mistake.

charghwI' 'utlh