tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 14 01:21:07 2006
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: mangpu' or negh?
- From: "QeS 'utlh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: mangpu' or negh?
- Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:20:53 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Shane MiQogh, ja':
>Actually, when one thinks about it, in english "to be afraid" is actually a
>noun.
No, it's a verbal phrase.
>Putting "be" infront of an english verb dosn't make it infinitive...
But "afraid" isn't a verb in English; it's an adjective.
>There are no infinitives in english. Which is the oposite in kligon, they
>are
>always infinitive.
You have these two confused. English has infinitives. "I can believe that"
contains one infinitive, the verb "believe". "To" is the bit that isn't part
of the English infinitive.
Conversely, it's Klingon that has no true infinitive.
>I am afraid of the bear.
>I = Pronoun - Referance to self
>am = verb (to be) - This means the next thing *MUS* be some kind of object
Or an adjective complement.
>afraid = Theoretical noun (for this example) - The object i am
>of = the causer
>the = pointless thing we call an article
>bear = object
>Theoretically could be translated: I am the thing (called afraid) of the
>bear.
>But, of course, because english is one of the most slaughtered languages
>out there...
You'll get no disagreement from me there.
>The proper way would be "The bear scares me". This makes a nice, even,
>Noun verb noun...
Which is how it is in Klingon.
>"I am afraid" alone should be a complete sentance, but is not a complete
>idea. theoretically also, afraid shouldn't exist. But of course, afraid is
>like a
>few ideas in english which make absolutely no sence...
Okay, then, define it as "in a state of having fear".
>I'm sure many foreigners would have trouble learning afraid in english.
Why? "I am afraid" is translatable by Klingon {vIghIjlu'} "something scares
me".
>I beleive okrand made klingon have suffixes instead of individual words,
>because Object-Verb-Subject is a rather uncommon concept.
What's the connection between OVS and agglutinativity?
>It would eliminate abuse of the language such as saying the same thing
>over and over again like: "The really really really really old dude is
>still alive."
Since rovers can modify other rovers, there's no grammatical reason why we
couldn't say {yIntaH ngo'qu'qu'qu'qu'wI'}. However, it's not very good
Klingon, in the same way as your example isn't very good English.
>I'll just chop this down to "if he left before i came here" for the
>example.
>"mejpa' vIHoHpu'chugh."
This is "if I had killed him before he came". "If he left before I came"
would be {jIghoSpa' mejchugh}.
>It literally translates to "I wouldn't have killed him if he left before I
>came."
>Which sounds a little more proper even in english.
I don't think there's a huge difference between {jIghoSpa' mejchugh,
vIHoHbe'pu'} and "I wouldn't have killed him if he had left before I came".
>I beleive he made it so we used suffixes, so we wouldn't abuse klingon
>gramatically and inject our culture into klingon, like we do our own
>languages.
I imagine the reality is much simpler: agglutinative languages are easy to
learn. An affix stays an affix, regardless of what comes before or after it.
Compare the complicated declension tables of fusional languages like Latin
or ancient Greek.
>Also, it makes it much easier to learn by people of languages that use
>different ways to say things than we do.
Klingon has something that speakers of just about every language would find
bizarre. I don't think it's appreciably harder to learn for any one group.
>Based on my theory, one could say Okrand developed klingon, not
>only for why we know, but to have a language that would be of
>"proper universal grammar."
That's a big call. What makes you think that?
>Bceesuae we can raed asomlt any wrod as lnog as the fsrit and lsat lrettes
>are
>the smae. We reiuqre taht the wrods bemoce searpate.
That has everything to do with *written* language, and absolutely nothing to
do with spoken language. Anyway, that's only true to a limited extent. What
word am I thinking of when I write "mepireratotinstin"?
>When you sound out a word to say it, you actually (in your mind) break up
>the word into sylobols...
That's if you have never encountered a word before. If you know it already,
you just say it, and you rarely think about syllables.
>We should learn from the japanese, one letter per sylobol rather than a
>letter per sound.
If we did that for Klingon, we would have some 2,000 letters in the Klingon
writing system to take care of all the different syllables that could occur.
Even worse in English; what letter would you propose for the word "sprints",
which is monosyllabic?
>If you're not fluent in klingon, i have a feeling it takes you a while to
>read
>aloud each word.
Reading it aloud isn't the problem, it's looking up what a word means. If
you're a good learner, you can learn all the Klingon suffixes and prefixes
in a couple of hours; everything beyond that is what roots you know.
>I thought klingon was supposed to have an unpredictable stress all over
>the word... From what i gathered from TKD, it's supposed to sound like
>you're constipated...
Reread section 1.3 of TKD.
QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
_________________________________________________________________
Bounce Back from sickness and injury today.
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fclk%2Eatdmt%2Ecom%2FMOS%2Fgo%2Fnnmsngem0010000007mos%2Fdirect%2F01%2F&_t=753470755&_r=HM_Tagline_Apr06&_m=EXT