tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 29 15:32:11 2002

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Re: two different types of object



Quvar asks:
>mu'tlheghvam vImughnIS:
>"You (pl.) honor me and my family"

You're right: It's tricky.  I could find no examples in canon of {A B je} 
where a pronoun is one of the elements so I could check to see which verb 
prefix is used to refer to them both.  Can anyone else think of one?

>1. qorDu'wIj jIH je tuquvmoH
>only jIH is object
>"you honor me; and my family"

If this is possible, shouldn't you reverse the nouns if the second noun is 
an addition?

   jIH (qorDu'wIj je) tuquvmoH
   you honor me (and my house)

>2. qorDu'wIj jIH je boquvmoH
>only qorDu' is object, jIH could also be the object, but only if it were a 
>noun.
>"you honor <my family and I>"
>"you honor my family and the viewing screen"

The second possibility is nonsense and can be eliminated; no Klingon in 
their right mind would hear this as "viewing screen" - unless they were 
making an awful pun, of course.  <g>

Besides, pronouns *are* nouns.  In HolQeD 4.2:3 we read that Okrand 
communicated privately with members of the KSRP (Klingon Shakespeare 
Restoration Project) that pronouns (being a subset of nouns) could indeed 
be used with stative verbs in comparisions: {SoH po' law' jIH po' puS} is 
correct.

>A solution could be two sentences:
>qorDu'wIj boquvmoH 'ej jIH tuquvmoH.
>"you honor my family and you honor me."
>    (but this looks so long)

Long to our eyes perhaps; maybe not to a Klingon's.  This one is quite 
possible, although you could omit {jIH} since it's implied in {tu-}.  We've 
seen Okrand do it this way:

   pInaDqu' tuqlIj wInaDqu' je
   Glory to you and your house.
   ("We praise you highly; we also praise your house highly") KGT

So, using this as a model:

   qorDu'wIj boquvmoH, tuquvmoH je.
   "you honor my family; you also honor me"

DloraH suggests:
> > 1. qorDu'wIj jIH je tuquvmoH
> > 2. qorDu'wIj jIH je boquvmoH
>
>How about che- ?

"you (pl.) [do something to] us"

This would be my first choice.  It's certainly the 
simplest.  Unfortunately, we've learned that Okrand doesn't always go for 
the simplest solution.

Another question is:  What is the order of pronouns in Klingon?  Different 
languages don't always follow the same order.  Is it properly {qorDu'wIj 
jIH je} "my family and I/me" (i.e. 3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person - as 
in English) or {jIH qorDu'wIj je} "I/me and my family" (i.e. 1st person, 
2nd person, 3rd person), or something else entirely?


-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons



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