tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 15 16:52:56 2003
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wanI' & clauses (was 'aH tIQ)
On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, David Trimboli wrote:
> The answer to "why use /-chugh/" is "why not?" /wanI'vetlh/ need not refer
> to an exact phrase used previously.
No, but it should refer to a noun. Think about it in English, the
sentence fragment, "If crowds could think". It's not a noun structure, it
has no entity to it. This is different that if I had the fragment,
"thinking crowd", now you've got an entity that could be referred to. Or,
if you went with the clause, "crowd which can think". You still have a
noun phrase that could be referred to.
In English, you can also refer to verb phrases with pronouns. "People are
fighting. We hate it." "it" is referring to the previous sentence. In
tlhIngan, this would be a construct using the special pronoun /'e'/ to
refer to the previous sentence:
Suv ghot. 'e' wImuS.
"People are fighting. We hate that (people are fighting)."
In English, however, the pronoun reflecting a verb phrase or other similar
kind of condition can be expressed easily as a subject. "People are
fighting. It is bad." tlhIngan starts to falter here, and the common
'fix' is to use somethin like /wanI'/ or /ghu'/:
Suv ghot. qab ghu'vetlh.
"People are fighting. That situation is bad."
Note the subtlety of using /-vam/ or /-'e'/ in:
qab ghu'vam
"This situation is bad."
qab ghu''e'
"THE situation is bad."
I'd be inclined to say that in this example, /-vam/ is probably "more
correct".
Now, part of the issue originally (a stumbling block for me, if you will)
was that the original was made to be one sentence, and in the middle of
that sentence was the adverb /vaj/:
QublaHchugh ghom'a' QeH, vaj qubbej wanI'vetlh.
"If angry mobs could think, then that situation would be rare."
This actually makes good sense provided /wanI'vetlh/ is NOT talking about
the /ghom'a'/. Even if you changed /-vetlh/ for /-vam/, you still would
probably not get the sense of discussing the /ghom'a'/:
"If angry mobs could think, then this situation would be rare."
If, however, you wanted to refer to the mob, /vaj/ doesn't make a whole
lot of sense, because there's a causal relationship that doesn't seem to
fit:
"If angry mobs could think, then those mobs would be rare."
It works, and is legitimate English, but doesn't really follow (nor does
it seem to be anything close to the intent). In this case, if you wanted
to say "Angry mobs that can think are rare", I think there're two options,
least favorite first:
QublaH ghom'a' QeH. qubbej neH chaH.
"Angry mobs can think. It's just that they're certainly rare."
qubbej QublaHbogh ghom'a' QeH.
"Angry mobs which can think are certainly rare."
Only the original poster (name forgotten, sorry), knows which they were
intending. This is what I get for reading every fifth message written
entirely in tlhIngan. ;)
At least it's generated some conversation on grammar. ;)
...Paul
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