tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Oct 06 05:16:36 2007

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Re: Grammar question: valid suffixes for {ben}

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

At 01:32 AM 10/6/2007, you wrote:
>Time is indicated in Klingon by using nouns such as {ben}, {nem},
>{wa'Hu'}, but there seems no indication in the canon whether these
>nouns can have suffixes in this usage.  For example, can we say:
>
>     wa'maH benHey jo' chenmoHlu'.
>     Apparently ten years ago the machinery is built.

I've seen no instructions, on the subject but it's a noun doing a 
noun's job, so it can carry suffixes. So that's valid. As the 
modifier is on the timestamp, the best translation would ensure that 
the uncertainty applies to that timestamp. I would interpret 
"Apparently ten years ago the machinery was built," as meaning 
<wa'maH ben jo' chenmoHlu'law'>. Perhaps "Indications are that the 
machinery is ten years old," or "The machinery was built what seems 
like ten years ago."

>or, say, when spoken by some time traveller:
>
>     vagh SanID benvo' jIjaH.
>     I came from five thousand yeras ago.

Our experience isn't that Klingons use metaphors of place with times, 
so the -vo' on a timestamp comes out looking weird. But you've 
specified time travel, which could tun a time into a more of a place, 
Who knows what the Klingon equivalent of Dr. Streetmentioner 
(attributed author of a fictitious guide to English verb tenses for 
time travellers) would come up with.to help Klingon time travellers 
communicate their paradoxes.

I'd be happy with you saying <vagh benHom> if you've established 
we're talking about a planet with shorter years,

Now let me go read what other people think.

-Qov

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