tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 29 11:08:05 2007

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Re: Basic grammar question

Robyn Stewart ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']



At 10:19 PM 11/28/2007, you wrote:
>Inspired by Doq's post, I've played around with a {tlho'meH jaj lutHom} of
>my own. In the process, something has caused me to puzzle a little:
>I wrote {maleng QorDu'wIj jIH je}.
>
>But it seems that the {ma-} should imply {jIH} as part of the subject.
>
>{maleng QorDu'wIj} seems odd, but that may be a result of thinking in the
>DIvI' Hol interpretation, perhaps it's not odd in tlhIngan Hol.

I would not blink at

leng qorDu'wI'

maleng qorDu'wI' jIH je.

I would blink at

maleng qorDu'wI'

but I would understand it. If I said that aloud, I think I would 
catch myself and then amend it to either

maleng qorDu'wI' jIH je.

or

maleng qorDu'wI''e' - kind of "we travelled, my family that is"

The thing is, "my family" and "our family" is a third person subject, 
even though it includes me/us.

"My family is ..."  This is confounded by English because in some 
dialects nouns denoting a group like "family" and "corporation" 
become third person plural, and in English third person and second 
person plural verbs are the same.  Consider it in Spanish or French 
or whatever language you speak with more elaborately conjugated verbs.

All that still doesn't mean that it couldn't work that way in 
Klingon, just that there's more than the lack of distinction between 
the verb forms preventing us from doing it in English.

>Also, perhaps {maleng QorDu'maj} would work in tlhIngan Hol even though it
>seems (a little) odd in DIvI' Hol.



>I would be interested to know if there is some strong evidence from MO for
>any of these, and if not, how they would be taken by any {tlhIngan Hol
>jatlhwI'} who would care to offer an opinion.
>
>--
>Qang qu'wI'






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