tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 04 16:07:57 2001
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Re: tuQaHlaH'a' ?
From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
> I'm thinking more like "Yesterday spoke to me about killing the targ.":
>
> wa'Hu' targh vIHoH 'e' DaDel bIjatlhvIS
-taH! -taH! -taH!!!
(Hee hee!)
> (Hmm, wa'Hu' where would wa'Hu' really go? I'm so out of practice)
Here are the parts of the sentence as you've written them:
wa'Hu' targh vIHoH
I killed the targ yesterday.
'e' DaDel (bIjatlhtaHvIS)
You described that (while you were speaking). (I put the relative clause in
parenthesis because it's extra and could be dropped for this point.)
But the targ-killing didn't happen yesterday, the telling did. Those two
parts should be:
targh vIHoH
I killed the targ.
wa'Hu' 'e' DaDel (bIjatlhtaHvIS)
You described that yesterday (while you were speaking).
/'e'/ is the object of this second sentence, and /wa'Hu'/ is a "header"
noun. Since headers come before the object, that's where I've placed it.
It may look odd after you've combined the two parts, though:
targh vIHoH wa'Hu' 'e' DaDel (bIjatlhtaHvIS)
Yesterday (while you were speaking) you described that you killed the targ.
The Sentence As Object construction says that the "object sentence" comes
before the main sentence, and that /'e'/ is the object of the main sentence.
That's what I've done here. The "object sentence" is not inside the main
sentence--it really is a sentence in its own right, so putting /wa'Hu'/ in
front of IT instead of in front of /'e' DaDel/ is wrong.
> Where the "about" is not a simple noun, but rather a phrase. Of course,
> if the "about" was a noun, the 'e' wouldn't be there.
Many prepositions in English have no equivalent in Klingon. With practice,
one learns how to form sentences using available Klingon grammar, without
starting out in the English.
> My mu'HaqwI' lexicon lists ja'chuq as a verb. As I said, I don't have my
> books with me, so I can't double-check.
>
> Is there an adopted rule here about verbs that show up in the dictionary
> that "appear" to have a suffix being treated as unique verbs? I thought I
> remembered there being some question about that for nouns (something like
> whether or not "QongDaqDaq" was correct)?
/mu'HaqwI'/ lists /ja'chuq/ as a verb because that's how it's listed in THE
KLINGON DICTIONARY. There are a number of these words that seem to be verbs
or nouns with suffixes attached (e.g. /ghojmoH/, /HeghmoH/, /QongDaq/).
This had sparked a lot of controversy on the list, and we were thrilled when
Okrand addressed this on the now-defunct MSN Okrand forum:
"For the most part, entries in The Klingon Dictionary (and also in the
addendum in Klingon For the Galactic Traveler) that consist of verb + suffix
are indeed just that, verb + suffix. . . . The ones that are listed are
there as much as a matter of convenience for the user as anything else. For
example, there is an entry for 'commit suicide' just in case anyone wants to
look that word up; but the Klingon equivalent is simply HoH'egh, literally
'kill oneself.' . . .
"A problem comes in because some of these forms . . . are so common, they
seem to, in the minds of some Klingons anyway, act as if they were simply
verb and not verb + suffix at all. This seems to happen only when the
suffix in question is -moH 'cause.' Maltz reports having heard both
quv'eghmoH 'he/she honors him/herself,' which follows the expected order . .
. as well as the weird quvmoH'egh 'he/she honors him/herself,' in which the
Type 1 suffix -'egh 'oneself' follows the Type 4 suffix -moH 'cause,' an
impossible formation unless the speaker is considering the verb to be quvmoH
'honor' and not quv 'be honored.' Speakers who do this seem to be aware
that they are breaking the rules, so they are doing it for rhetorical
effect." --Okrand, MSN Expert Forum, December 1, 1997
He goes on to say that a notable exception is /lo'laH/ "be valuable," which
is not the same as /lo'/ "use" + /-laH/ "able." It's a distinct verb.
/lo'laHHa'/ "be unvaluable" is a legitimate word.
He says he'll bring up the topic of how to use /ja'chuq/ in another post,
but I don't think he ever did. I DO seem to recall someone claiming they'd
asked him about it personally and he agreed that it's /ja'/ plus /-chuq/, or
I may have heard him say it myself. Or, I could be deluding myself and
remembering it because I want to. However, I think it's likely that he
recognized that people would want to say they "discuss SOMETHING," and he
wanted to think of a way to make that work, without simply saying that
/ja'chuq/ was a distinct verb.
I REALLY think I remember hearing a confirmation of this! (This is starting
to sound pretty pitiful, huh?) Maybe someone else will remember.
By the way, we get confirmation that /QongDaq/ is a single noun in THE
KLINGON WAY, p. 40: /QongDaqDaq Qotbe' tlhInganpu'/ "Klingons do not lie in
bed."
> > It'd be convenient if we could say */quv wIja'chuq/ "We discuss honor,"
but
> > we can't. This is why I suggest /quv'e' maja'chuq/ "On the topic of
honor,
> > know this: we confer."
> >
> > wa'Hu' batlh'e' maja'chuq.
>
> Aren't you still putting batlh'e' in the object position? I'd be more
> inclined to see ja'chuq as taking an object, the object being the topic of
> the discussion.
No, not any more than I'd be putting /wa'Hu'/ in the object position in
/wa'Hu' mavem/ "Tomorrow we will wake up." Each sentence has NO object.
You're just seeing the header (batlh'e') next to the verb because there's no
object to go between them.
SuStel
Stardate 1341.4