tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 04 17:49:21 1999

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RE: KLBC vuDlIjvaD qatlhob



I'm gonna make the rare move of responding to this one in English.  Just
a couple Grammarian-type comments beyond what the BG said.

>> Thanks about the -taH following 'e',  as well. 
>> Hadn't heard of that one.
>
>It's often called the "obscure rule". It's a single sentence in the middle
>of the sentence as object (6.2.5) section of TKD on page 66. If you really
>want to specify an aspect, you can put it on the *first* verb; the second
>verb takes on the aspect of the first.

This is a rule that you need to know about-- it is very obscure-- but not
lose too much sleep over.  It is routinely overlooked or outright violated.
The problem is that the rule is not only obscure, but it also *sucks*.  It's
fine as long as you want the same aspect on both verbs, which is all that
the passage in TKD addresses.  We're left hanging for what to do about cases
where the aspect is NOT the same.  Example:  "I still remember that you
betrayed me."  Decomposing to two sentences, we get:  "You betrayed me.  I
continue to remember that."  The betrayal is completed, the remembering is
continuous-- two different aspects.  The obvious translation is:

*chomaghpu' 'e' vIqawtaH.	"I still remember that you betrayed me."

*Technically*, according to the strict letter of the law, this is
ungrammatical.  But hardly anyone will bat an eyelash at it.  Including
me.

>
>>>> *teqSIS*Daq ghommaj. 
> 
>>> This is a sentence without a verb. Basically, it 
>>> just says "Our group in Texas.". You want 
>>> <teqSISDaq 'oHtaH ghommaj'e'>.
>
>> I DID leave out the pronoun 'oH I had intended. I think 
>> that a state of being verb is implied in that pronoun, 
>> isn't it? Similar in construction to tlhIngan jIH ?
>
>HIja'.
> 

That's not really the right way to think about it.  There is no *implied*
state-of-being verb.  There is a very *explicit* to-be verb.  It is the
pronoun itself.  The pronoun is very much acting as the verb of to-be.
Thus, tlhIngan jIH does NOT mean:  "I [am] [a] Klingon", it means
"I-am [a] Klingon".  The jIH in this instance means "I am".  The proof
of this is that the pronoun may (and often does) take *verb* suffixes
in such sentences.  All of these are legal:

tlhIngan maHbej			"We are definitely Klingons!"
tlhIngan tlhIHbe''a'?		"Aren't you all Klingons?"
naDev chaHqangbe'taH		"They're unwilling to continue to be here."
SuvwI' ghaHchugh vaj targh puqloD jIHba'
				"If he's a warrior, then I'm obviously
					a son-of-a-targ!"

Mind you, Klingon probably doesn't use the verb of to-be as much as
English does, and I would probably redo that third one as something like
naDev ratlhqangbe' chaH, but it's still legal as originally formulated.

When the pronoun-as-verb-of-to-be requires an explicit subject, it follows
the verb, just like in all Klingon grammar.  The only thing special is
you have to tack an -'e' on the subject.   Thus:

qoH chaH be'pu'vetlh'e'		"Those women are fools."

The best way to think of the -'e' is just as syntactic noise.  It really
carries no semantic meaning, you just have to include it because that's
the rule.  Otherwise, we have normal O-V-S; structurally identical to, say:

qoH rur be'pu'vetlh		"Those women resemble fools."

Except, of course, for the -'e'.

		--Captain Krankor, Grammarian


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