Re: John and I go...

[willm@cstone.net]

> SuStel wrote:
> >There is no evidence that you can say */majaH torgh/ (let's use a
> >Klingon name).  The correct way of saying it is /majaH jIH torgh je/.  I 
> >believe we've had an example (I can't cite it) with "pronoun noun je" as
> >subject.
> 
> Can't cite it? Tsk tsk. My own search yielded only one instance of a
> pronoun plus noun conjoined: "woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je", but
> the chaH is added for clarity (i.e. it is pragmatically necessary), so this
> is not conclusive for our purpose here. I'm interested in this problem, but
> I don't have the answer. Nonetheless I think it is premature to say that 
> ??majaH torgh?? is out-and-out wrong. I reread TKD 4.1 and 5.1 last
> night and could not find anything specifically wrong with it, except maybe 
> that it is a violation of my English-centric sensibility. Does that count?? 
> {{:-)
> What does everybody else think?

Okrand hasn't given us many examples with first or second person subject 
prefixes on verbs with explicit subjects. After all, the whole point of having 
first and second person is for brevity so you don't have to give your own and 
other's names all the time. Klingon lacks tense, but it would be very easy to 
have a functional language that lacked a designation for person.

Meanwhile, if I saw {majaH torgh}, I'd read it as "We torghs go." I'd assume 
that everyone within the first person plural group would have the name {torgh}. 
When we talk about the third person, we either don't mention anyone, or we 
mention everyone. I don't see any evidence for it being okay to imply the first 
person singular while explicitly stating another person within the first person 
plural. All of our examples have had groups either explicit or implicit. It has 
never been mixed like you are mixing it.

> >wouldn't be opposed to /majaH Hoch maH/, because /Hoch maH/ is
> ><apparent> ly) a plural 1st person phrase.
> 
> Really?!! I would really like to know if THIS is canonical. I haven't
> been able to find any instances of ??Hoch maH??, and my searches for any
> other possible indications of how tlhIngan Hol might express pronominal 
> quantification (like ??'op tlhIH??) have been unfruitful. I could 
> not accept "Hoch maH" without canonical support; it just seems too
> arbitrary and too probably an Anglicism.

I have less trouble with it, though those comments are in another post. The 
fact is, I don't remember any use of {tlhIH} at all in canon. Expecting to see 
{'op tlhIH} is probably unrealistic. I'd really expect pronouns to work just 
like nouns with these vague-number-nouns. Of course, it tweaks the brain to 
think about how we'd use actual numbers with pronouns. I wish we had a simple, 
uncontroversial way to say "Three of you, come with me."

Guesses:

HItlhe' wej.
HItlhe' wej tlhIH.
HItlhe' tlhIH wej. (genetive for "three of you")
mutlhe'nIS wej. jISaHbe'.

It sounds like we'd really benefit from a discussion with Okrand about the use 
of numbers and other counting nouns combined with pronouns, and about more 
versatile and varied ways of using first and second person prefixes with verbs 
and explicit noun subjects and objects.

Will