tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 04 07:58:16 2006
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Re: KLBC
Voragh:
> > Indeed. You made the same mistake I did with that Anthem example
> > earlier. {DaHjaj} and {naDev} are NOT adverbs in Klingon; they're nouns
> > serving as time- and place-stamps: {DaHjaj naDev bIr muD}.
> >
> > We both gotta stop thinking anglocentrically. <g>
ter'eS:
>I don't know why you call this anglocentric.
Because when I searched my files for examples of two adverbials used
together, I saw the English translation and wrongly assumed they were
adverbs. In English "today" and "here" are adverbs, not nouns as they are
in Klingon. A Klingon learning English would probably instinctively feel
these words were nouns, until he learned better. S/he would be thinking
klingonocentrically, as it were.
>I've been studying Ancient Egyptian for a while now, and adverbs and
>adverbial phrases play a much larger role in AE than in any IE
>language. The ancient Egyptians would surely see time and place stamps as
>adverbial, and also (as QeS suggests) nouns with {-Daq} or other Type 5
>suffixes. In fact, they'd probably consider subordinate verb phrases to
>be adverbial
Yes, I remember that from when I studied Middle Egyptian years
ago. European scholars (particularly Erman and Gardiner IIRC) classed
these as adverb(ial)s, but the question is: Did EGYPTIAN grammarians call
them "adverbs"? (Indeed, what is the Egyptian for "adverb"? Or "verb" and
"noun" for that matter?)
>(maybe that's why the klingons prefer to put them at the beginning of the
>phrase, along with all the other adverbials!).
I quite agree. (The other logical place would have been at the end of the
sentence, so as not to interrupt the OVS sequence.) But for some reason,
Okrand went out of his way to say these time- and place-stamps are not
adverbials in TKD (p.27):
It is worth noting at this point that the concepts expressed
by the English adverbs "here", "there", and "everywhere" are
expressed by nouns in Klingon: {naDev} "hereabouts", {pa'}
"thereabouts", {Dat} "everywhere". These words may perhaps be
translated more literally as "area around here," "area over
there," and "all places," respectively. Unlike other nouns,
these three words are never followed by the locative suffix.
As we know, adverbials are classed with the {chuvmey}:.
By far the bulk of Klingon words are nouns and verbs. There
are a few others which, probably as an expedient, Klingon
grammarians lump together in a group called {chuvmey} "left-
overs". It is possible to classify the {chuvmey} somewhat."
(TKD sec. 5)
Okrand goes on to subdivide them into pronouns (KTD 5.1), numbers (KTD
5.2), conjunctions (TKD 5.3), adverbials (TKD 5.4), exclamations (TKD 5.5)
and names (TKD 5.6). Of course, the term "adverbial" may only be a term
used by Federation linguists studying Klingon. We don't know what Klingon
grammarians call these words - if anything. Klingons may even view them as
a sort of introductory phrase and not a discrete part of speech at
all. (However, we do know that "true adverbials" - {ADVERBna'}? - are not
nouns because they don't take noun suffixes, and they're not verbs because
they don't take verb suffixes - *except* for {-Ha'}... sometimes - which
itself may be a clue as to their origin in an older stages of the
language. Or maybe not.)
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons