tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 08 22:08:41 2000
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RE: KLBC: nuq as object
jIja'pu':
>Neither group has a problem with {nuq DaSop
>DaneH} "What do you want to eat?" There was a minor
>bout a few years ago when we came close to seeing an
>objection, but it was quickly resolved by the fact
>that it actually is a question.
ja' ghaHbe'wI':
>Please, can you tell me when was that discussion?
I don't remember when this came up. It wasn't even quite a discussion. It
was more a matter of charghwI' thinking out loud on the topic of "Question
As Object" and nearly rejecting {nuq DaSop DaneH} because it looked
superficially similar to the controversial {'Iv DaHoHpu' 'e' vIQoy}. Half
a sentence or so later, the essential difference between the two was noted
and the baby was retrieved from the bathwater.
The reason {nuq DaSop DaneH} works for most people is that it uses {nuq} in
exactly the way it's supposed to be used. It goes in the spot in the
sentence where the answer would be.
{'Iv DaHoHpu' 'e' vISov} would only work that way if you meant to ask "Who
do I know that you killed?" There are those who insist that an
undocumented feature of the language lets it mean "I know who you killed."
This is not supposed to be the same thing as "I know the person who you
killed," by the way. The problem is that there's a concept at work here
called an "indirect question", which isn't addressed in Klingon grammar as
we know it. Klingon might not even be able to express them at all,
requiring that we make the questions direct ones: {'Iv DaHoHpu'
vIghellu'chugh, jIjanglaH.}
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh