tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 21 19:57:04 2006

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Re: I have a few questions that confuse me...

QeS 'utlh ([email protected])



ghItlhpu' Shane MiQogh, ja':
>   A: QumwI' vIneH.
>   B: QumwI''e' vIneH.
>Odd... They both make sence, right? I can't find
>the phrase, but there is a phrase of which a pypius

It's spelled {pIpyuS} in Klingon and "pipius" in English.

>(sp?) claw was the tobic, and in "The Klingon Way"
>he didn't append 'e' to the end.

jang ter'eS, ja':
>{-'e'} isn't a marker of the object, it's a marker of the topic.
>It's true that {-'e'} can be put on a noun that is an object,
>so B isn't exactly wrong, but the purpose of B as opposed to
>A is to put special emphasis on the object noun: "I need
>a COMMUNICATOR".

To clarify slightly, the meaning is "I need a *communicator* (and not 
anything else)". The following three sentences mean essentially the same 
thing, but the emphasis is changed in each:

{QumwI' neH HoD} "the captain wants a communicator"
{QumwI''e' neH HoD} "it's a communicator that the captain wants" (he doesn't 
want anything else)
{QumwI' neH HoD'e'} "it's the captain who wants the communicator" (no-one 
else wants it)

>It's far more common to leave off the
>{-'e'} with a simple noun object.  There's an example in
>TKD (The Klingon Dictionary): {HaqwI''e' DaH yISam} "Find
>a SURGEON now!" But it's mainly to show that in some cases,
>you can put the object noun before an adverbial {DaH}.

As with any noun plus type 5 suffix, you can put a noun with {-'e'} at the 
start of the sentence, in which case it is specially marked as topic, and is 
considered especially emphasised. (In this case, it's strictly no longer a 
direct object.) There's another example in Star Trek V (IIRC):

{qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS}
"you would be the most wonderful warrior in the galaxy"

Literally, this means "In the galaxy, as for warriors, you are greater than 
all".

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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