tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 30 16:05:22 2006
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Re: I wonder who's kissing her now?
- From: "QeS 'utlh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: I wonder who's kissing her now?
- Date: Mon, 01 May 2006 09:05:08 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Shane MiQogh, ja':
>DaH nagh 'Iv, 'e' vISIv.
>That's how i'd do it.
A good try, and a logical one, but with this version we come across the
dreaded Question As Object (QAO) bugbear. It's been a matter of some
substantial and lengthy debate on the list as to whether it's possible to
create a construction like this, because despite the fact that a question
word is found in the sentence, the ultimate result is not actually a
question. This makes the "question" word behave as a relative rather than an
interrogative particle, and we just don't know if that's possible in
Klingon. Okrand has been asked at least once about QAO, and he hasn't given
us a straight answer:
"You can not use a 'question' as an object; but... it is not known yet if
Klingon question words can act as one of those ... relative pronoun... The
safest thing for now would be to recast if possible." (DloraH, personal
conversation with Marc Okrand, May 1998)
Ah hah! While looking for {SIv} among the MSN posts, I came across this:
"All four words asked about (tul "hope," Qub "think,"� Sov "know,"
and SIv "wonder") can be used in the construction S 'e' V, where S is a
sentence, 'e' is the pronoun ("that") which refers to a previous topic (in
this case S), and V is one of the verbs listed above (as well as some
others). If the sentence (S) is tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh "you speak Klingon"
(tlhIngan Hol "Klingon language," Dajatlh "you speak it"), it's OK to say:
...
tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv "I wonder if you speak Klingon" (vISIv "I
wonder it")"
(Okrand to the MSN newsgroup, 1 July 1997)
Okrand's further clarification seems to indicate that {SIv} "to wonder"
would probably be better glossed as "to wonder (about), to be curious about,
to ponder". If this is the case, we could answer Okrand's own question about
"I wonder who's kissing her now" with something like {DaH ghaH chopbogh
vay''e' vISIv} "I wonder about the (some)one who is biting her now" works -
which I see no reason to reject.
Don't worry, stop looking; I've found it. {{:)
Savan,
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
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