tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 10 09:40:37 2004

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Re: Vegas

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

Bill:
> >reH be'Hompu' ngeD chech DItu'jaj
> >May we always find easy drunk girls!

QeS lagh:
>I'll just put in my two bits' worth of comment here and say that normally
>two stative verbs don't modify one noun at the same time. I'd immediately
>recast {be'Hompu' ngeD chech} as {ngeDbogh be'Hompu' chech} "drunk girls who
>are easy" or {ngeDbogh be'Hompu' 'ej chechbogh} "girls who are drunk and who
>are easy". While there's no canon that says {be'Hompu' ngeD chech} is 
>illegal,
>there are examples in KGT that at the very least suggest that it might
>be: {SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh} "yellow tea" (literally, "tea which is
>{SuD} and light"), instead of the expected ?{Dargh SuD wov}.

Simply stringing qualities together like this is expected in English, not 
in Klingon.  Qualities are not adjectives in Klingon; they are verbs.  In 
addition to the {SuDbogh Dargh 'ej wovbogh} example QeS cited, another way 
to use two closely-related qualities is to turn them into predicate verbs 
linked with {'ej}:

   SuD Dargh 'ej wov.
   The tea is {SuD} and [it is] light. KGT

or use two closely-related relative clauses modifying the same noun:

   romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'
   Romulan hunter-killer probe (KCD)

This probably only works when there isn't a lot of extra verbiage between 
the verbs and the governing noun to confuse the listener.

And, purely for the sake of completeness, there's this odd bit from the 
"Warrior's Anthem":

   yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'
   Say'moHchu' may' 'Iw
   The blood of battle washes clean
   the warrior brave and true.

This has confused a lot of us, but I think that we can consider it an 
example of (ancient?) verse, where the grammatical rules can be relaxed a 
bit in the hands of a skilled poet.  This anomalous use of {je} may be an 
archaic survival.  Note too that "the warrior brave and true" is also 
stylistically marked in English.  It feels old-fashioned; modern English 
prose would place the adjectives before the noun ("the brave and true 
warrior").



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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