tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 05 15:01:56 2007

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Re: Basic grammar question

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Qang qu'wI' wrote:
> On Dec 2, 2007 11:15 AM, David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Now, before you go taking this as evidence for your theoretical *{maleng
>> qorDu'wIj jIH je}, answer this: according to your model, how would you
>> translate "The captain gave me and the other officers medals"? Using our
>> customary methods, I can think of two distinct ways (not counting
>> variations with the prefix trick).
>>
>> My first thought would be:
> 
> jIHvaD Degh nob HoD. latlh yaSpu'vaD Deghmey nob je.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure about disributing the {-vaD} through nouns joined with
> je, but possibly also:
> 
> latlh yaSpu'vaD jIHvaD je Deghmey nob HoD.

The rules aren't clear regarding conjoining nouns with type 5 suffixes 
on them, but I believe they should be conjoined just like any other 
nouns. However, canonical evidence would suggest that the nouns need to 
be part of the same semantic class — beneficiaries are conjoined with 
beneficiaries, locations are conjoined with locations, but locations are 
not conjoined with places you're going away from (and so on). I believe 
your latter sentence works perfectly well in that regard.

So now why do you readily use {yaSpu'vaD jIHvaD je} where before you 
were hesitant to write {targh jIH je}?

As an aside, I find it interesting that when you combine the two 
beneficiaries, you reverse their order. Your beneficiaries in your first 
example are reversed in your second example. I wonder if you're 
reversing them because of some notion that in Klingon things are backwards?

SuStel
Stardate 7928.6

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