tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Dec 01 18:01:15 2007
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Re: Basic grammar question
This is interesting.
maleng qorDu'wIj.
Does it work? It does seem very strange and we have no canon to back
it up as normal. Why does it seem strange?
Well, when we intentionally break verb agreement on the direct object
in order to reveal an indirect object, like {tajwIj qanob}, it
parallels an English sentence "I'm giving you my knife." We know that
I'm not really giving you. I'm giving TO you. I'm giving the knife.
If we didn't have this parallel English construction, there would not
have been anything to prepare us for {tajwIj qanob}. Since we do have
the construction in English, the Klingon is easy to understand.
Meanwhile, English doesn't allow us to say "My family travel," and
know that I'm counting myself as part of my family. Someone would
want to correct me and say, "My family travels." Make it third
person, not first.
Do we know that doesn't happen in Klingon? No. Do we know it does
happen in Klingon? No.
I don't think there's a way to resolve this short of asking Okrand or
Maltz. Since we probably can't do that, then, it's just a mystery.
The other suggestions for suffixes on {qorDu'} are just as
interesting and just as unanswerable. {qorDu'maj?} {qorDu'}?
Since I primarily use Klingon to speak to people who speak it and
English, I probably won't use any of these constructions just because
it obviously would not communicate very well in that crowd. Arguing
with them by telling them that they SHOULD understand it would be at
best ineffective.
Doq