tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 23 14:40:04 2003
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Re: tlhobqa'qu' taghwI'
QeS lagh wrote:
>I'm just waiting for a book that will answer all my stupid trivial
>questions... :D That's what got me onto the idea of replacing parts of the
>noun-noun construct with <<nuq>>. (Incidentally: Voragh, is there canon
>support for replacing the *first* noun of a noun-noun construct with
><<nuq>> or <<'Iv>> (eg. <<'Iv
None that I know of.
>Ha'DIbaH>> "whose animal?", or is recasting necessary for that too?)
I personally don't greatly object to *{'Iv Ha'DIbaH} and understand what is
meant when I see it, but many on this list do. (You can check the list
archives for the extensive and somewhat tedious discussion.) Without it,
though, I can't think of any simple way of asking "Whose animal is this?"
If you're trying to make sense of how this works, remember that {nuq},
{'Iv} and {nuqDaq} are not pronouns in Klingon as they can often be in
English, but only question words. Since they're not pronouns, they can't
replace another noun in the sentence (which is what pronouns do). And so,
while you can say {Qugh Ha'DIbaH} "Kruge's animal, the animal of Kruge",
you can't properly say *{'Iv Ha'DIbaH} "whose animal, the animal of who(m)?"
On the other hand - in studying Klingon you will find that there is almost
always "another hand"! - Okrand has written:
Question words (in this case, {nuq} "what?") function the same way
pronouns do in questions with "to be" in the English translations.
Thus, the question {yIH nuq?} "What is a tribble?" is exactly parallel
to the statement {yIH 'oH} "It is a tribble" ... (startrek.klingon)
And just to confuse things even further, we've seen that {nuq} can
apparently come on either side of the noun:
nuq mI'lIj, tera'ngan?
What is your number, Terran? CK
which appears in the same tape as:
Dochvam nuq?
What is this? CK
Daqvam nuq?
What is this place? CK
With this in mind, {'Iv Ha'DIbaH} would most likely be understood by a
"native speaker" as "Who's an animal?" (And yes, {Ha'DIbaH} can definitely
be used to refer insultingly to a person.)
(You know, now that I think about it, that anomalous CK example might just
be a Klingon analog to English contractions - a sort of very casual,
uneducated or careless speech. Perhaps {mI'lIj nuq?} is the proper way to
say "What is your number?", while {nuq mI'lIj?} sounds more like "What's
your number?" or "Your number's what?")
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons