tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 20 10:48:05 2009

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Re: Question problem

Fiat Knox ([email protected])



The question words "nuq" and "'Iv" are treated as nouns, and can occupy the subject or object position in a sentence, or wherever a noun can be placed, for instance:-

'Iv jol ra'wI' - Whom does the commander transport?
ra'wI' jol 'Iv - Who transports the commander?

nuq bachpu' puqloD - what did the boy shoot?
puqloD bachpu' nuq - what shot the boy?

'Iv SoH - Who are you?
nuq 'oH - What is it?
nuq 'oH Dochvetlh'e' - What is that?

SuvwI'vetlh ghaH 'Iv'e' - Who is that warrior?

Now from what I could see in the Addendum of TKD, the other question words come "at a point in the sentence before the object - verb - subject structure." That doesn't mean that there's only one slot at the start of a sentence; only that the question words precede the main sentence bit, e.g.

qatlh SIbI' mev qetboth loDvetlh - Why did that running man stop immediately?

Something like that, anyhow. I'll get you reference numbers, page, chapter and verse later.

Peace,


Alex.

"Oh, I love it when they /ask/ me to corrupt them ..." - Me, talking to Nai, Mar 01 2008

"You people and your quaint little categories." - Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood

"We're grown ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means." - Randall Munroe, http://xkcd.com

Conquer the Universe with me! See how at http://fiat-knox.livejournal.com

We are now leaving the Kingdom of Star Trek and entering normal space.


--- On Wed, 20/5/09, Doq <[email protected]> wrote:

> From: Doq <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Question problem
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Wednesday, 20 May, 2009, 12:44 PM
> We were told that question words take
> the place of the words that  
> answer them. {nuq} is treated grammatically like the noun
> it replaces.  
> The answer could be the same sentence with {nuq} replaced
> by the noun  
> that answers the question. I had thought that discussions
> similarly  
> took the "beginning" question words as adverbials.
> 
> My mistake, I guess.
> 
> Of course, that doesn't resolve why we should prefer to
> have the  
> adverbial or the question word first, except to mimic the
> English word  
> order preference.
> 
> Doq
> 
> On May 18, 2009, at 9:50 PM, David Trimboli wrote:
> 
> > Doq wrote:
> >> I wanted to ask, "Why are you starting slowly?"
> >>
> >> Suddenly, I realized that I had one grammatical
> slot to put two words
> >> in. I don't think we've been given any license to
> use two adverbials
> >> with a single verb, since adverbials don't have
> conjunctions like
> >> nouns and verbs do. Meanwhile, the question word
> for "why" is
> >> grammatically treated as an adverbial, so I'm
> stuck.
> >
> > Is it? TKD 6.4 simply says the question words
> /nuqDaq/, /ghorgh/,
> > /qatlh/, and /chay'/ occur "at the beginning of the
> sentence." It says
> > nothing about them taking an "adverbial slot."
> >
> > In fact, we don't know anything about "adverbial
> slots." TKD 5.4  
> > simply
> > says that most adverbials occur "at the beginning of a
> sentence."  
> > We've
> > never SEEN two adverbials in a single sentence (not
> counting /neH/,
> > which works differently), but that doesn't
> automatically deny us the
> > possibility.
> >
> > Basic Klingon sentence structure seems to be very
> amorphous. I picture
> > it this way:
> >
> >     <header> <object>
> <verb> <subject>
> >
> > where <header> is a nebulous blob containing all
> the bits that aren't
> > the object, the verb, or the subject. Timestamps tend
> to come first,
> > adverbials tend to come before nouns, question words
> tend to come  
> > before
> > everything else. Of those tendencies, I think only the
> one about
> > timestamps is explicit (TKD p. 179); the others
> probably come about  
> > due
> > to our native language instincts. Strictly speaking,
> according to the
> > book, timestamps tend to come first, adverbials tend
> to come last, and
> > everything else appears between the two.
> >
> > This general structure has, of course, many
> exceptions. This is not an
> > all-inclusive formula.
> >
> > qatlh QIt bItaghlI'?
> >
> > (Notice the lowercase /q/ in /qatlh/!)
> >
> > -- 
> > David Trimboli
> > http://www.trimboli.name/
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


      






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