tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 16 21:45:47 2002

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Re: Hech (was: Re: SajwIj)

>I'm saying that I believe /'e'/ is the only object that makes SENSE with
>/Hech/.  Grammatically, /'e'/ is always an object, and nouns can be objects
>too.  There's no GRAMMATICAL reason why some noun can't be the object of
>/Hech/, but then there's also no grammatical reason why some noun can't be
>the object of, say, /Qong/.  /quS vIQong/ is a grammatical and nonsensical
>sentence.

That's what I was trying to say.  There's no GRAMMATICAL reason, but the 
English definition implies that you can't use a noun object.

> > I would formulate that implied exception as follows:
> >
> > {Hech} can only be used in the construction [SENTENCE 'e' -Hech-] 
>(dashes
> > represent prefix and suffixes), and only when the main verb of SENTENCE
>has
> > the same subject as {Hech}.  ([SENTENCE 'e'] can be implied by context
> > rather than specifically stated.)
>
>How do you determine that the subject of SENTENCE must be the same as the
>subject of /Hech/?  Because two canonical examples do so?  I can imagine
>other possibilities.  For instance,
>
>tach wIghoS maH 'e' vIHech jIH.
>I intended for us to go to the bar.

Well, I didn't think this would be okay, since 1) it splits up the  'intend' 
and the 'to', and 2) No canon examples (none I know of) support this use.  
Since you seemed to be uncomfortable with examples which lacked the 'to' 
when translated into English, I thought you would be equally uncomfortable 
with examples that split the word up this way.  Guess I thought wrong.  (And 
I say 'you' here, but I assume this is the general usage.)

> > This gets us away from English notions of the infinitive.  Thanks for 
>your
> > explanation and canon example.
>
>I think it's simply a matter of identifying the set of semantically allowed
>objects for /Hech/.  The problems lie in the odd definition in TKD and the
>varying definitions of the English words involved.

That's why I wanted to formulate an exception; basing Klingon on the English 
definition makes me uncomfortable, so I wanted to define it in terms of 
Klingon grammar.  Too bad Okrand wasn't more specific about this.

>SuStel
>Stardate 2045.4




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