tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Sep 28 08:48:42 2006
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Re: Klingon WOTD: paS (verb)
Voragh:
> > qaSuch vIneH 'ach narghpu' 'eb. jIpaSqu'.
> > I was too late to visit you. (st.klingon 1/98)
> > ("I want to visit you, but the opportunity has escaped. I am very
> late.")
> >
> > qaSuchlaHbe'. jIpaSqu' vaj narghpu' 'eb.
> > I was too late to visit you. (st.klingon 1/98)
> > ("I cannot visit you. I am very late, thus the opportunity has
> escaped.")
> >
> > jIpaSqu'mo' narghpu' qaSuchmeH 'eb.
> > I was too late to visit you. (st.klingon 1/98)
> > ("Because I'm very late, the opportunity to visit you has escaped.)
> >
> > [BTW notice the "purpose noun" {qaSuchmeH 'eb} as the subject of the verb
> > {nargh}. IIRC it's the only example we have.]
lay'tel SIvten:
>Is there any more text in st.klingon 1/98 besides these sentences?
Just isolated words. Here's the complete text of Okrand's post:
****************************************************************************
From: Marc Okrand
Newsgroups: startrek.expertforum
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:42:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Problem with {-meH} and negative meanings
[Shortly before the old MSN forum on the Klingon language disappeared
(to be replaced by this new newsgroup), a message was posted there titled
"Problem with {-meH} and negative meanings." I wasn't able to write a
response to it before the changeover, so, rather than just leaving that
message floating around in some sort of limbo, I'm posting the response
to it here. - Marc]
Will Martin wrote...
>I have a new approach to an old nagging problem in the language. There is
>a temptation to translate "I was too late to visit you," as {qaSuchmeH
>jIpaSqu'}. Meanwhile, to me, this sounds like I'm saying that I was
>intentionally very late with the goal of my tardiness being that I visit
>you.
>
>Instead, these days, I translate this sort of thing as: {qaSuch vIneH
>'ach jIpaSqu'}. The contrast between the conjoined sentences implied in
>{'ach} seems to carry for me the sense that the latter fact conflicted
>with the former intent.
>
>Does this seem like an improved approach to you, or do you think there
>was no problem with the first version using {-meH}?
I can understand why you've been feeling nagged about this. There are, I
think, a couple of issues.
First, we have to figure out what "I was too late to visit you" means.
It could mean (a) I came to visit you, but by the time I got there, you
had left or were indisposed; or (b) I didn't come to visit you because I
spent a long time, perhaps longer than expected, doing something else
and by the time I was freed up to visit you, it was too late for you or
for me or for both of us. In any event, because I arrived past some sort
of cutoff point (or because I wasn't ready to set out until that cutoff
point had passed), the visit did not take place. This cutoff point could
be a specific time of day (12 midnight, perhaps), or an event that occurs
at a certain time (visiting hours end at 6:00), or even an unscheduled
event (a better offer came along and you left before I got there).
I don't think that the first approach ({qaSuchmeH jIpaSqu'}) conveys the
intended meaning as described above (if I'm right in my description of the
intended meaning; if I'm not, all the rest of this discussion might not be
answering the right question!). The two words in the sentence are:
{qaSuchmeH} "in order that I visit you"
{jIpaSqu'} "I am very late"
Perhaps, then, a better English rendition of the Klingon sentence is "In
order for me to visit you, I'll be very late." This suggests that the
visit did or will take place (though later, perhaps, than desired), which
is not the intended meaning.
The second approach suggests using the sentence {qaSuch vIneH 'ach jIpaSqu'}
"I want to visit you, but I am very late," which is made up of:
{qaSuch} "I visit you"
{vIneH} "I want it"
{'ach} "but, however"
{jIpaSqu'} "I am very late"
This also could mean that the visit will take place: My being late is
inconvenient, but we'll visit anyway.
In both approaches, the phrase "I was too late" (of the original sentence
"I was too late to visit you") is translated {jIpaSqu'}. The prefix {jI-},
of course, is the "I" and there's no problem there. {paSqu'} (that is,
{paS} "be late" plus the rover -qu' "emphatic"), then, is being used for
"too late." {-qu'} is usually translated "very" or "extremely" or the like
(that is, {paSqu'} means "very late"), so if "too late" means "very late,"
all is well. But in the example sentence ("I was too late to visit you"),
the phrase "too late" doesn't mean "very late"; it means "excessively late"
or "overly late." Thus using {paSqu'} might not be the best course in the
first place. It doesn't get across the idea of going beyond some cutoff
point.
I'd probably take an idiomatic approach incorporating the phrase {nargh
'eb} "the opportunity escapes". This goes along with other expressions
such as {'eb jon} "he/she captures the opportunity" or, more colloquially
"he/she seizes the opportunity".
This presents a number of options (there are certainly others):
jIpaSqu'mo' narghpu' qaSuchmeH 'eb.
"Because I'm very late, the opportunity to visit you has escaped."
({qaSuchmeH 'eb} "opportunity for me to visit you")
qaSuch vIneH 'ach narghpu' 'eb. jIpaSqu'.
"I want to visit you, but the opportunity has escaped. I am very late."
qaSuchlaHbe'. jIpaSqu' vaj narghpu' 'eb.
"I cannot visit you. I am very late, thus the opportunity has escaped."
I hope this helps with the "I was too late to visit you" problem. I don't
know if it will help with the more general problem of "{-meH} and negative
meanings," which is the topic of the original posting.
****************************************************************************
>By "the only example we have", do you mean of a purpose noun as the subject?
Actually, I meant as the subject of an action verb. There is another as
the subject of a pronoun-as-verb in an equational sentence. (See below.)
I remembered there was a brief discussion some time ago on how to use
purpose nouns. We know of only a handful, but AFAIK only four have been
used in complete sentences: the above {qaSuchmeh 'eb} example and three
others:
{QongmeH Duj} "sleeper ship":
tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH loS bong QongmeH qItI'nga' Duj tI'ang
ghompu' DIvI' 'ejDo' 'entepray'
A sleeper ship of this [K'Tinga] class, the T'Ong, was encountered
in the 24th century by the USS Enterprise. S15
{ngongmeH Duj} "experimental ship, prototype vessel (?)":
ngongmeH wa' DujDaq nuHmey nISbe'bogh So'wI' jomlu'pu'
[A cloaking device which didn't disrupt weaponry was installed
in one experimental ship. (untranslated)] S33
{chenmoHlu'meH Daq} "construction site":
tlhIngan juHqo'Daq tlhIng yoSDaq 'oH toQDuj chenmoHlu'meH Daq wa'DIch'e'
1st Construction Site: The Kling District, Klingon Home World. BOP
[N.B. the Klingon is a complete sentence but the English is not]
Notice BTW how any noun or numeral modifiers are placed *between* the
"{-meH}ed verb" and its head noun. I would have expected the purpose noun
to act as if it were an inseparable compound noun) - e.g. *{qItI'nga'
QongmeH Duj} "a K'Tinga-class sleeper ship" and *{wa' ngongmeH DujDaq} "on
one experimental ship" - but this is not how they seem to work.
In the BOP example, however, the ordinal number {wa'DIch} follows the noun
as it usually does. No surprises here.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons