RE: KLBC

["Andeen, Eric" <Eric.Andeen@Sequencia.com>]

lab Ian Wilkinson:

> I have been reading TKD for a while and I have a couple of 
> questions. Could you elaborate on the Noun-Noun construction, 
> can you put a Noun-Noun in a Object-Verb-Subject as either the 
> object or the Subject or both.

It can go in either. Here are some examples:

matlh pu' vItlhap - I took Maltz's phaser.
cheqIp ta' 'avwI' - The emperor's guards hit us.

If you have other questions on noun-noun constructions, I will be happy to
answer those as well.

> And how do say words that have a ' at the start or words with 
> '' in them (eg 'e', be''e'). Sorry, I know the last bit is not 
> grammar, but I am having a hard time listening to the 
> Conversational Klingon tape as I don't seem to be able (yet) 
> to pick out the sounds correctly and it does not have a '' on it.

Words that start with <'> sound just like English words that start with
vowels. English speakers just don't know how to start a vowel *without* a
stop. If you ever hear it, it will probably sound strange, but you won't
know why.

It's pretty hard to tell the difference between <'> and <''>. The only real
difference is a slighty longer pause. Okrand has said in (I believe) a post
to the startrek.klingon newsgroup that double consonants do sometimes tend
to get collapsed into a single consonant, especially by younger speakers,
and that <''> is the one double consonant pair that almost all Klingons
collapse. So if you can't tell the difference, don't worry.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian