tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 17 12:23:06 2009

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Re: Klingon Ad for my new novel!

Doq ([email protected])



HIvqa' veqlargh!

Good suggestion, though I'd tend to say it one of two ways:

tlhIngan Hol Dalo'meH Dubba'taH laHlIj.

Dubba'taH tlhIngan Hol lo'meH laHlIj.

In other words, if the purpose clause is applied to the main verb,  
it's good to indicate the subject of the purpose clause. All the canon  
I've seen of this works this way, though if I'm wrong about this, I  
can rely on this being pointed out to me.

However, if the purpose clause is applied to the noun, Okrand usually  
leaves the {-meH}ified verb with no prefix, even if there is no third  
person subject implied, like {ghojmeH taj}. He never explained why  
this is the case, but that's the way it seems to work.

It's like the noun-modifying purpose clauses are a step closer to  
clipping, especially in fossilized terms, like {ghojmeH taj}, which  
might actually be {ghojmeHtaj} in terms of how a Klingon thinks of it.  
The written language as we know it is, after all, just a notation for  
spoken Klingon. It's not how Klingons write. It's for pronunciation  
and recording purposes. All knowledge we have of the language is oral,  
not written.

Doq

On May 16, 2009, at 2:17 PM, Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen wrote:

> ghItlh Doq:
>> DubtaHba' tlhIngan Hol laHlIj.
>
> Clearly your suffix order error has been included as a test.
>
> Personally, I don't like N-N-N constructions. They feel clunky to me.
> I'd have recast this as a complex sentence, thusly:
>
> tlhIngan Hol lo'meH Dubba'taH laHlIj.
>
> Or something similar. Of course, I am not one of the grammarians,
> and there may be other errors creeping in that I fail to see.
>
> --Lawrence
>
>
>
>







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