tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 18 15:51:48 2001
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Re: Pronouns
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Pronouns
- Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:30:24 -0400
I brought this up several years ago when I discovered that Klingon
translates "I think, therefore I am" even better than English.
jIQub vaj jIH.
If you really understand what this statement MEANS (I didn't until I was
discussing philosophy with a friend), you realize that the Klingon expresses
the sentiment perfectly. The uncertaintly of the pronoun between noun and
verb is exactly what the sentiment requires.
Pronouns are /chuvmey/. They are not nouns and they are not verbs. When
you say /tlhIngan jIH/, you're saying nothing more complicated than "Me
Tarzan." It's not an Object-Verb or Subject-Verb sentence. It's just an
equivalence (or a subset).
This is why I like the way pronouns work with two nouns: /tlhIngan ghaH
yaS'e'/ "Klingon. Him. Topic is officer." It's not Object-Verb-Subject,
not really. It's just a bunch of words thrown together in an accepted
fashion.
/pa'Daq jIH/ Forget whether /jIH/ is a noun or a verb. What you've got is
two words whose meanings are associated with each other: "in-the-room," and
"me." What else can this mean except "I am in the room"?
Clearly, the halfway state of the /chuvmey/ thought of as pronouns
(remember, Klingon grammarians don't differentiate between different types
of /chuvmey/) are pretty flexible. Want a meaning like /-qa'/? Have fun.
Why not?
/pa'Daq SoHqa'/ "You're in the room again."
We shouldn't get so hung up over "Is it acting like a noun now? Oh my god,
does that mean I can't use a verbal suffix?" The To-Be sentences in Klingon
are simply sentences where the difference between the subject and object
nouns and the verbs are unimportant, and often unheeded.
As an offshoot of this interpretation of Klingon To-Be, I tend to cringe
when people come up with these careful, logically correct but very
cumbersome To-Be sentences. If anything is unKlingon, those sentences are.
So go ahead: yell /SoHqa'/ when bad drivers maliciously or stupidly block
you. I'm absolutely convinced that a Klingon wouldn't think twice about it.
SuStel
Stardate 1716.2
>From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Pronouns
>Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:03:42 -0400
>
>A few days ago, I was driving. I felt crabby. A driver near me was creating
>a traffic situation that activated that part of my brain that thinks in
>Klingon first and then translates back to English. Like I said, I felt
>crabby.
>
>Anyway, I thought I finally got around this car and drove on for a while,
>daydreaming about other stuff when I awoke and saw the same car in front of
>me again. {SoHqa'!}, I cried aloud, with a subliminal "You again!" echoing
>behind.
>
>Then I thought, "No, that's wrong. Pronouns only work as verbs when used
>with other nouns, as in {tlhIngan maH!} If I just yell {maH!}, then it's
>acting like a noun, not a verb."
>
>I continued my internal debate. That slant basically requires every pronoun
>used as a verb to have a direct object. It may or may not have a subject,
>but it always needs a direct object. Canon reveals this.
>
>But no. What about {pa'wIjDaq jIHtaH}? There is no direct object or subject
>noun here. The locative doesn't count. The root "sentence" here is
>{jIHtaH}. It is clearly a verb. So, what is wrong with {SoHqa'}? Well,
>nothing.
>
>Admittedly, I was using it more as an exclammatory than as a verb. I could
>have said, {HewIjDaq SoHqa'} and it would have been a perfectly good
>sentence by pretty much anybody's enlightened opinion.
>
>Unfortunately, my car's foreward distruptors weren't working, so I had to
>just continue driving behind this ... other car.
>
>charghwI'
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