tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 17 17:38:22 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Re: ma'veq: It's official

DaH mu'mey vIleQpu' jIH 'e' vItlhoj. QaghwIj. 

>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.

Yes, yes. Just a little nit-pick though: aspect prefixes are type 7.

>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.

Here's a question: the example given in TKD works because both parts of the
SAO phrase are in the same tense. What if they aren't? Then the
implications aren't the same! If I had wanted to say, "I had thought that
prefixes confused me"; I could see how adding the suffix to both sides
could be redundant. But, If I had wanted to say, "I had thought that the
prefixes confuse me"; I would have to leave the suffix off of both parts,
making it the wrong tense enirely. So, while incorrect, I think that what I
said is much more clear. 

>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.

If only Klingon were as liberal as English!  ;)

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

Back to archive top level