tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 14 07:53:23 2004

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Re: Weird grammar in CK

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

> >  qIp'egh nachDu'chaj tlhIngan SuvwI'pu'
> >  Klingon warriors are butting heads.   CK
>
> >"This sentence really doesn't make much sense to me. I think it's supposed
> >to be {qIp'egh tlhIngan SuvwI'pu' nachDu'}. However, perhaps Okrand has
> >some weird sort of grammar in mind..." (SuStel)

This has been discussed over and over again - you can search the List 
archives - with no real resolution.  Since Okrand said it on the CK tape, 
we can't blame the publisher and call it a printing error.  Best to just 
consider it an idiomatic phrase, however strange the grammar.  (Maybe it's 
a famous quotation from an uneducated speaker; maybe it's a well-known line 
from a song where the grammar was manipulated to fit the meter; maybe it's 
a bit of {no' Hol} reflecting historically different grammar.  Who 
knows?  Maybe the Klingon speaker on the tape had already had a few drinks 
when he said this to the Terran!)

QeS lagh:
>Indeed. SuStel, since you were the one who wrote this comment, what do you
>make of this sentence? I can't make any sense of it as it stands: for a
>start, I would have expected {qIpchuq}. With a plural subject, anything's
>possible, I guess. But to me plural subject + {-'egh} signifies that a whole
>bunch of things are doing something to themselves. For instance {maqIp'egh}
>"we hit ourselves" (masochists, maybe) is different to {maqIpchuq} "we hit
>each other".

Fortunately, Okrand too seems to realize the CK example was weird and in 
KGT he provides another, less problematic, method to refer to this 
distinctive Klingon custom using the slang verb {paw'} "butt heads":

   This verb describes a very common habit among Klingon warriors,
   particularly at festive occasions. Two Klingons stand close together,
   facing each other, and, with great joviality, slam their foreheads
   together. The word literally means "collide" and is usually (though
   hardly exclusively) heard when referring to vehicles. In both its
   literal and slang usages, {paw'} takes a plural subject: {paw' tlhIngan
   SuvwI'pu'} ("The Klingon warriors butt heads"; literally, "The Klingon
   warriors collide"); {paw' lupDujHommey} ("The shuttlecraft collide").
   To refer to a something in motion colliding with something stationary,
   a different verb, {ngeQ} ("bump into, collide with") is used, as in
   {raS ngeQ tera'ngan} ("The Terran bumps into the table"). When the
   subject of {paw'} is persons, the most common interpretation of the
   verb is the slang one--that is, "butt heads." Thus, if one were to
   say {paw' tera'nganpu'} ("The Terrans collide"), this would probably
   be taken to mean that the Terrans butt heads, as unlikely as the
   image might be. When the subject of {paw'} is anything other than
   persons, the most likely interpretation is the nonslang one, "collide."
   If one wanted to say that two persons collide but not imply that they
   butt heads, the verb {ngeQ} would probably be used along with the
   suffix {-chuq} ("each other") as in {ngeQchuq tera'nganpu'} ("The
   Terrans collide with each other"). There is no simple nonslang verb
   for "butt heads."   [KGT pp. 157-58]



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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