tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 21 07:35:05 2004

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: paghHu'/paghleS

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: <[email protected]>

> Klingon has a series of paired deictic time words which designate the time
of
> an event relative to the time of speech.  For example, {Hu'} means 'days
ago'
> and {leS} means 'days from now'.  They are usually preceded by a number
> indicating how many days in the past or future the event occurred.  Thus
{wa'Hu'}
> means 'one day ago', or 'yesterday', {cha'Hu'} means 'two days ago', or
'the
> day before yesterday', {wa'leS} means 'one day from now', or 'tomorrow',
and
> {cha'leS} means 'two days from now', or 'the day after tomorrow'.  None of
this
> is new.  In fact, these very words are as old as Klingon itself, meaning
they
> are found in the first edition of TKD.

(A nitpick: Klingon was first spoken in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  The
seven words audible on camera were the starting point of Okrand's later
development of the language.)  None of these words were the words you
discuss above.

> What is not in TKD, or anywhere else, as far as I can determine, is what
> {Hu'} and {leS} mean when used with {pagh} ('zero').  Both {paghHu'},
literally
> 'zero days ago', and {paghleS}, 'zero days from now', both seem to mean
'today'.
>  But Klingon already has two distinct ways of saying 'today', viz.
{DaHjaj}
> and {jajvam}.  So even if the forms with {pagh} did mean 'today', they
would be
> superfluous.
>
> I submit that both these words have useful and distinct meanings.
>
> While both of these words basically do mean 'today', each adds its own
> essential nuance. Since {Hu'} indicates a past time, and {leS} indicates a
future
> time, {paghHu'} means 'earlier today', and {paghleS} means 'later today'.

This theory is not attested in any canonical Klingon we know.  It's
possible, but there is no evidence to support it.  It's also possible that
the nuance you're describing doesn't exist.

Just because a language has a potential construction doesn't mean that
construction is correct.  In English, "I go to bed" and "I go to the bed"
mean very different things, but you couldn't deduce why or what the
difference was using only grammatical rules.  It's just the way it is.  The
rule you have submitted here cannot be proven by grammatical means; it needs
to appear in canon, or to be explained by Okrand.  None of us have native
knowledge of Klingon idioms.

Not every possible construction is productive.  We have no way to determine
what is productive in Klingon; we can only guess based on example.  No
example does what you suggest.

SuStel
Stardate 4387.6

P.S.: Note, however, slang words like {paghDIch} "zeroth" from KGT.

Back to archive top level