tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 13 15:15:59 2001

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RE: Very first word question !!

Unless I'm mistaken, I accidentally didn't send my standard introductory
message in response to your first messages.
{HIvqa' veqlargh!}

Welcome to the list, Qu'joy'! I'm taD, the current Beginner's Grammarian.
It's my job to help beginners here with Klingon. You can add the letters
"KLBC" to your subject line whenever you want me to check your work, or if
you have a question about how to say something in Klingon. If possible, you
should also include what you were trying to say, in English. This will make
it easier for me to make sure that you say what you are trying to say.

Qu'joy' said:

	Trying for words to be used in a holistic, non traditional, 
	approach for Klingon health. 

	Hemotite for healing/soothing 


	jI =prefix= I/none 
	ghaj =(v)= have, possess 
	pIv = be healthy 
	nagh = stone 

	jI + ghaj + pIv + nagh =  jIghajpIv'nagh 

	pIvnagh  = be healthy stone 


It looks like you want to say "I have a healthy/healing stone."
The word order in Klingon is <object verb subject>, so the word for "healing
stone" (which is receiving the action and is the object) would go before the
verb. The subject in this case is {jIH} "I", which would go after the verb.
So, ignoring how to say "healing stone" for now, the word order should be:

	{*healing stone* jIghaj jIH}

However, as you have noted above, the prefix {jI-} is used for "I (do
something to) nothing". Since you possess the stone, you need to use the
prefix "I (do something to) him/her/it". This prefix is {vI-}, so you would
say:

	{*healing stone* vIghaj jIH} "I have the healing stone"

Since the prefix {vI-} already tells us who has the stone, {jIH} ("I") is
sort of redundant, and so you can leave it out:

	{*healing stone* vIghaj} "I have the healing stone"


Now we just need to decide how to translate "healing stone". Unfortunately,
we can't just combine a verb onto the noun. However, we can modify the noun
with verbs in several ways:

If we put the verb *before* the noun, then it makes a whole sentence:
	{pIv nagh} "A stone is healthy."

In this case, that's not what we want. Instead, if we put a descriptive verb
right *after* the noun, it acts like an English adjective. For example:
	{nagh pIv} "a healthy stone"

The only problem with {nagh pIv} ("a healthy stone") is that the stone
itself isn't healthy - it's a stone that makes other people healthy. We can
use the verb suffix {-meH} ("in order to, for the purpose of") to describe
the purpose of the stone:

	{pIvmeH nagh} "a stone for the purpose of being healthy" or "an
in-order-to-be-healthy stone"

So if we use this in the original sentence, we can say:

	{pIvmeH nagh vIghaj} "I have a stone for being healthy" or "I have
an in-order-to-be-healthy stone."

Hopefully, this would get the idea across.

Qapla'!

- taD

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