tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 05 09:53:15 2010
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RE: qoSwIj
SuStel:
>> TKD defines "adverbial" to be a specific list of words, and {DaHjaj}
>> isn't one of them. It is a noun that can be used as a time stamp, not
>> an adverbial in the Klingon-language sense. (Yes, it behaves as an
>> "adverbial" in the general linguistic sense, but that's not what we're
>> talking about here.)
Chris:
>Well, actually, TKD defines an adverbial a word that "usually come[s]
>at the beginning of a sentence and describe[s] the manner of the
>activity." A list then follows, but nowhere does it say that this
>list is complete or exhaustive.
On the list we usually call those introductory phrases "time stamps" or "place stamps" to get around the whole "adverbial" issue.
>What are we talking about, then? The example you give from TKW
>clearly has <DaHjaj> acting as an adverbial:
>
>> DaHjaj SuvwI''e' jIH.
>> Today I am a warrior. (TKW 203)
>
>This is ungrammatical with everything we know about
>predicate-nominals, unless <DaHjaj> is an adverbial...
FYI Chris, Okrand discussed {Dahjaj} et al. on the old MSN Expert Forum mailing list:
***************************************************************************
From: "Marc Okrand" <...>
Newsgroups: msn.onstage.startrek.expert.okrand
Date: 29 June 1997
Subject: Re: Tonight, this morning, etc.
Regarding "tonight" and so forth, I'd go along with your suggestion:
DaHjaj ram "tonight" (literally "today night" or "today's night")
DaHjaj po "this morning" (literally "today morning" or "today's morning")
DaHjaj pov "this afternoon" (literally "today afternoon" or "today's
afternoon")
DaHjaj DungluQ "this noon" (literally "today noon" or "today's noon")
DaHjaj ramjep "this midnight" (literally "today midnight" or "today's
midnight")
DaHjaj pemjep "this midday" (literally "today midday" or "today's midday")
(The phrases "this noon," "this midnight," and "this midday" are a little
awkward in English -- we'd probably say "today at noon," "tonight at
midnight," "today in the middle of the day" or something -- but in Klingon,
they fall right into place.)
In Klingon, you could even say DaHjaj pem "today's daytime," which would
probably be typically contrasted with DaHjaj ram "today's night" (or
"tonight").
wa'leS po "tomorrow morning," cha'leS po "the morning of the day after
tomorrow" (literally "two-days-from-now morning"), and so on work quite
nicely.
Adding -vam "this" to most words designating fixed periods of time seems
to be the only way to indicate "current." Thus the current year or "this
year" is DISvam (referring, of course, to a Klingon year, or DIS), the
current month or "this month" is jarvam, and the current week or "this
week" is Hoghvam. There don't seem to be special words for "the current
year" and so forth comparable to DaHjaj "the current day" or "today."
DaHjaj seems to be formed of the adverbial DaH "now" plus the noun jaj
"day," a unique type of formation as far as I know. It is perhaps by
analogy to DISvam, jarvam, etc. -- all formed by simply adding a noun
suffix to a noun - that Klingons also refer to the current day as jajvam
"this day" (jaj "day, period from dawn to dawn").
Though they both can be translated "today," DaHjaj and jajvam are not quite
interchangeable. As the time element in a sentence, DaHjaj (and not
jajvam) is used:
DaHjaj romuluSngan vIHoHpu' "today I killed a Romulan"
As the subject of a sentence, on the other hand, jajvam is more typically
found:
nI' jajvam "this day is long"
though DaHjaj is not impossible:
nI' DaHjaj "today is long"
DaHjaj also behaves as a noun (as opposed to an adverbial element) in such
noun-noun constructions as DaHjaj gheD "today prey" or "today's prey," a
term often heard in Klingon restaurants with a meaning comparable to "catch
of the day."
Phrases such as jajvam po "this day morning" or "this morning" are not
common, but they're not ungrammatical either.
***************************************************************************
We have no idea what Klingon grammarians call them or how they deal with the issue. Note that Okrand himself isn't sure about {DaHjaj}:
{DaHjaj} seems to be formed of the adverbial {DaH} "now" plus the
noun {jaj} "day," a unique type of formation as far as I know.
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons