tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 07 14:16:47 1999

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Re: yIt

jatlh ghunchu'wI':
>ja' T'Lod:
>><< juH vIghoS. jIyIt.
>> >>
>>
>>Why not just say:
>>juHDaq jIyIt.
>
>Because that is at least as likely to mean "I walk at home" or
>"I walk in the home". It's certainly not as clearly expressed
>as the {juH vIghoS; jIyIt} that charghwI' suggested. Although
>one might be able to interpret the two sentences as indicating
>a sequence, the important idea of going home is unmistakable.
>To be more certain of being understood, one could make one of
>the sentences into a clause tied to the other one:
>
>
>juH vIghoStaHvIS jIyIt.
>juH vIghoS jIyIttaHvIS.
>juH vIghoSmeH jIyItlI'.
>jIyIttaHmo' juH vIghoSlI'.

Though all of your examples do succeed at being more exact, I much prefer
charghwI''s {juH vIghoS; jIyIt.}  I've been getting more and more of the
impression that Klingon has many of these jammed-together sentences.  The
first glaring one was {'uSDaj chop; chev} from Power Klingon, though I think
there were some before it.  A Klingon saying {juH vIghoS; jIyIt} wouldn't
pause significantly at the semicolon: he'd keep right on going like the PK
example.  {juH vIghoS jIyIt!} is how it would sound.  And since I'm going
through some scenes in Hamlet now for the I-Con convention, and Hamlet has a
LOT of clauses in most sentences, I've been seeing places where the run-on
sentence would be much, much easier to parse.  (Admittedly, one could say it
mimicks the dense English.)

But now I'm getting confused.  When I first saw the Okrand interview with
the motion verbs, I could see {-Daq} seeming to be redefined.  charghwI'
insists that what was happening was Okrand confirming the usage of a few
select verbs, and since I wasn't there I am forced to accept his
explanation.  But it seems like the nature of {-Daq} is STILL being
considered here.  Since when have we been concerned about the ambiguity of
{juHDaq jIyIt}?  While {juH vIghoS; jIyIt} has always been an option, no one
would ever have complained about {juHDaq jIyIt} until now.  The ambiguity
has always been considered perfectly normal, and TKD backs this up.

Are we always to come up with alternatives to {-Daq}?  Does {-Daq} no longer
sufficiently mean "to" as it does "at"?  Is it now too ambiguous to use with
the "to" meaning that we'll be telling others to use something else?  What's
the deal here?  Are we redefining {-Daq} ourselves, has it been redefined
for us, or have we always been using it wrong?  I guess I'm rather concerned
with the "Oh, yes, I knew that" attitude I'm seeing with some of the list
members.

SuStel
Stardate 99179.1

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