tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 03 15:22:40 2003
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Re: Question
> Use the second when you want to ask a question. We don't have any examples
> of Okrand using {ghel}, but it probably works like {jang} "answer,
> reply" and other verbs of speech. E.g.:
>
> ghel Qugh <<nuqDaq chaH DIvI' qama'pu''e'?>>
> Kruge asked, "Where are the Federation prisoners?"
>
> or
>
> <<nuqDaq chaH DIvI' qama'pu''e'?>> ghel Qugh.
> "Where are the Federation prisoners?" Kruge asked.
>
> So instead of saying, for example, "I have a question: What is that
> word?", you would say
>
> jIghel vIneH <<mu'vetlh 'oH nuq'e'?>>
> I want to ask: "What is that word?"
Reference HolQeD Dec 98, interview with Okrand:
>>>
MO: ... Verbs of speech are "say" verbs, like jatlh and ja'.
WM: In English, we use many of them.
MO: Yes. In English, we say, "Give me some water," he said. "Give me
some water," he pleaded. "Give me some water," he yelled.
WM: He added. He begged. He opined.
MO: Exactly. I think that's an English thing to do. That's not a Klingon
thing to do. In Klingon, you jatlh and you ja'. That's about it. The
guard asked the prisoner a question. He replied. He said, "[gestures a
quotation he never quite made]"
[After the intewiew, I made the following three lines of examples to show
how this worked:
qama' yu''avwI'. jatlh Qu'lIj DarIn'a'?
'avwI' jang qama'. jatlh tugh. vIrInmeH taj vlpoQ.
mon 'avwI'. jatlh chotojmeH bInIDchu'ta'.
Dr. Okrand modified one sentence and said he accepted them as valid but
wanted it noted that they were my sentences and not his, in his words, "a
suggestion by you, okayed by me." - WM]
WM: So, basically, in Klingon, you would just use jatlh a lot. If someone
is asking a question, would you state the question and say jatlh?
MO: If it's a direct quotation, I would. Yes.
(clip)
MO: The way I see I see the verbs of speech, there may be more than just
ja' and jatlh, but there is only a small number of words, unlike
English. You have to use a separate sentence for the replying,
pleading, screaming. "He screamed. He said,'Come help me.'"
WM: Since a direct quotation grammatically looks like two separate
sentences, you are saying that it would now look like three separate
sentences at that point. You'd have one describing what style of
verbalization he was having, one saying "he said" and one giving
the quotation.
MO: Yes.
WM: Very interesting.
(clip)
WM: Just to mention particular verbs in terms of whether they can be
used for speech or not, you are saying that ghel is a word that
would probably not be used typically as a verb of speech. That even
if you are asking a question you would still tend to use ja' or jatlh.
MO: Yes. "He asked me. He said,'blah, blah, blah.'" Or "He said,'blah,
blah, blah.' He asked me." It doesn't matter.
WM: jang - "answer" would be similar?
MO: Yes.
WM: And tlhob would similarly be...
MO: tlhob also has the non-quoting sense.
WM: Things you would unlikely use for speech are bach, chel...
MO: bach is slang. The rules might be a little bit different. For non-
slang...
WM: chup "suggest." jach "cry out." SIV "wonder."
MO: I've got to figure out what to do about "wonder." That summer, the
more I thought about it the more confused I got.
WM: Are there any other verbs of speech that you would care to
comment on?
MO: Are there any other verbs of speech?
WM: And a typical direct object of ja' would be the person addressed and
a typical object of the verb jatlh would be the thing you say.
MO: The speech event.
WM: I like that term.
MO: Including a direct quote. I'm telling a story. He "blah, blah, blah"
jatlh.
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