tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 12 11:09:31 2001
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RE: QQ23
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Boozer [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 5:56 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: QQ23
>
>
> ghaHbe'wI' wrote:
> >
> > muHonmoH mu'tlhegh veb: <<juHDaq paw>>.
> > naDev lugh'a' <<-Daq>> mojaqvetlh. vISovbe'.
> >
> > nuq ja' Okrand:
> > HQ v7n4p9: "{Duj vIpaw} means "I arrive at the ship"; {DujDaq
> jIpaw} means
> > "I arrive on the ship", that is, I arrive via the ship or
> something like
> > that. And it would probably be okay to say {DujDaq vIpaw} for
> "I arrive at
> > the ship". But {Duj jIpaw} strikes me as odd."
>
>
> That being said, we do have Okrand saying in "Power Klingon":
>
> Qo'noSDaq paw cha' DIvI' beq.
> Two Federation crewmen arrive on Kronos.
>
> Translating this hyper-literally as "Two Federation crewmen arrive *via*
> Kronos" - i.e. using the planet Kronos as some sort of vehicle -
> in accordance
> with Okrand's above-stated rule would obviously be wrong.
I suggest three possible explanations:
1. Perhaps Okrand merely made a mistake with his prefix and he meant
{Qo'oSDaq lupaw cha' DIvI' beq.} That is the most frequently forgotten
prefix, after all.
2. My own suspicion is that when Okrand wrote the Power Klingon example, he
thought of {paw} as an intransitive action that would happen at a location,
and later, when he stated the rule, he considered the possibility of it
being one of the verbs of motion, like {ghoS} where the direct object would
be the destination.
3. Perhaps the whole reason for this rule was that he was trying to make a
distinction for vehicles with the verb {paw}. Verbs of motion are already
exceptional in that they can take locative nouns as direct objects. Perhaps
this is an exception within an exception; that when the locative is a
vehicle, if it is not the direct object, it is the vehicle used to bring one
to the destination, while if it is the direct object, it is the destination.
Without this rule, we'd have to do some somewhat awkward recasting to make
this distinction. {paw Duj vIlIghbogh.} For an action as common as arriving
in a ship, Klingons would probably find a shorter idiom. {DujDaq jIpaw}
works for me. The only other meaning I could get out of {DujDaq jIpaw} would
be that I'm arriving from one place on the ship to another place on the
ship. This is not specific enough to be all that useful. I suspect Okrand
was trying to make a distinction between {paw} and {qet}, for example, since
{DujDaq jIqet} makes more sense as a statement that the whole action of
running happened on the ship.
If this third suggestion were the case, then the example in Power Klingon
would not fit the rule, since Qo'noS is not a vehicle.
I suspect that if we brought this up to Okrand, this third possibility would
be the one he'd like most; but it's just my suspicion, judging by
conversations at qep'a'mey and the interview in HolQeD.
> This
> may well be a
> stylistic or colloquial variation of the more grammatical (stylistically
> elevated?) form:
>
> Qo'noS lupaw cha' DIvI' beq.
>
> when {paw} and other verbs of motion are used with geographical
> names or other
> place nouns, like {juH} "home, house".
That's certainly a possibility, and I suspect we'd get the nod from Okrand
that it is a valid way to say this. Meanwhile, I do find the third
possibility a bit more interesting.
> For a descriptive linguist - like Okrand - grammatical rules are not
> absolutes. They describe how the majority of Klingons speak, but there is
> always some variation WRT the speaker's personal style,
> education, level of
> speech (formal, informal, slang, etc.) or place of origin.
He has repeatedly stated that the most important tool for interpreting
proper grammar in Klingon is observation of usage.
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
charghwI' 'utlh