tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 10 12:46:57 2001
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Re: Enterprise
Ten minutes ago I wrote:
: While checking my notes I noticed that Okrand only uses {ghaj} "have,
: possess" with subjects referring to a person or groups of persons
: (e.g. {qorDu'} in Skybox S8), but never an inanimate object.
HIvqa' veqlargh!
Oops, let me re-phrase that. Due to a strange lapse in my notes, I missed the
well-known proverb:
Hov ghajbe'bogh ram rur pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj
A day without secrets is like a night without stars. PK
Days and nights are obviously not people, but neither are they inanimate
objects. They are periods of time and, as such, may fall between the cracks -
particularly in poetic or proverbial usage like the above.
For those interested, here are the remaining attestations of {ghaj} I'm aware
of, all of which have people as the subject:
nIn 'ar wIghaj
How much fuel do we have (left)? TKD
pIch vIghajbe'
It's not my fault. TKD
De' pegh vIghaj
I have secret information. PK
butlh ghajbogh nuv'e' yIHo'
Admire the person with dirt under his fingernails. TKW
cha'maH cha' joQDu' ghaj qama'
The prisoner has twenty-two ribs. KGT
qaStaHvIS wa'maH puq poHmey, wo'rIv betleH ghaj qorDu'Daj
Worf's bat'telh has been in his family for ten generations. S8
: Perhaps Klingons don't anthropomorphize (klingonomorphize?) their
: ships as humans do; thus, a
Another point: Ships are never referred to by the pronoun {ghaH} "he/she",
always {'oH} "it".
: ship may not be able to "possess" anything in Klingon - unless it's alive
: (biotreknology!?). You may not even be able to say {X ghaj tera'} "[planet]
: Earth has X" but only {X lughaj tera'nganpu'} "Terrans have X" or {X ghaj
: 'ejyo'} "Starfleet has X", since Starfleet is an organization consisting of
: people like {qorDu'}.
Though I'd like to see more examples of {ghaj} in context, I think I'm still on
the right track here.
The {ghaH}/{'oH} distinction - animate/nonanimate, or more precisely:
sentient/nonsentient (i.e. Okrand's famous phrase "capable of using language")
since plants and animals take {'oH} - seems to lie at the heart of much Klingon
grammar and usage.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons