Re: to' nech, 001: {Hal latlh yIyu', lI'mo' pagh lI'be'mo'}

[Steven Boozer <sboozer@midway.uchicago.edu>]

>K: Hal latlh yIyu', lI'mo' pagh lI'be'mo'.
>Gloss: Interrogate another source; because this is useful, or not.
>Eno/Schmidt: Consult other sources -promising -unpromising

'ISqu':
 > Since <latlh> is a noun, not a verb, I believe it should come before <Hal>:
 > <latlh Hal>

'ISqu' is correct; {latlh} "additional one, other one, another one" 
preceeds the noun it modifies.  E.g.:

   reH latlh qabDaq qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS
   The fire is always hotter on someone else's face. PK

   latlh HIvje'Daq 'Iw HIq bIr yIqang!
   Pour the cold bloodwine into another glass! KGT

A vocabulary note:  {Hal} "source, supply" has been used once by Okrand:

   nISwI' HIch motlh HoS Hal qengwI' naQ tIq je lurarlu'bogh 'oH tlhIngan
    nISwI' beH'e'
   The Klingon disruptor rifle is a standard hand held disruptor, attached
    to an extended power supply stock. S14

Here {HoS Hal} is a "power supply, power source".  {Hal} also shows up in 
{tlhIlHal} "mine" (a place where minerals (tlhIlmey) are mined 
(tlhIl).  I've also seen some people use *{bIQHal} on the List for a spring 
or well.  Whether you can use {Hal} in the sense of a source of information 
- *{De' Hal}? - is not known.  If not, consider using the noun {vay'} 
"anybody, anything, somebody, something, someone":

   latlh vay' yIyu'!
   Interrogate someone/something else.

Although we've never actually seen the phrase {latlh vay'} "another 
someone/thing", there's no grammatical reason this isn't allowed.  It 
sounds awkward in English, but in Klingon...?

Finally, a style note:  Although you can put clauses in either order, good 
Klingon style - or, at least, Maltz's style - tends to prefer placing the 
dependent clause first:

   lI'mo' pagh lI'be'mo', latlh vay' yIyu'!



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons