tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 12 17:24:38 2010
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Re: Hypothetical (reconstructed) vocabulary?
- From: Alex Greene <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Hypothetical (reconstructed) vocabulary?
- Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:23:32 +0000 (GMT)
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- In-reply-to: <[email protected]>
> > "That is not so" would be something like "qarbe'
> Dochvetlh," "lughbe'
> > Dochvetlh" or "teHbe' Dochvetlh" if I were trying to
> translate the
> > above sentence. *vajHa' doesn't sit right with me
> either.
> When Maltz balks at something, my impression is that he
> considers it
> "not the way a Klingon would say it," not that it doesn't
> make sense to
> him. /We/ completely lack any way to reason along these
> lines.
It's okay to just say that it's M. Okrand balking at the construction, and deciding that *vajHa' doesn't sit right with him.
*vajHa' and *chaqHa' don't work well for me, because of the fact that those two adverbials don't modify the behaviour of the verb in the sentence. They indicate the speaker's reasoning process - "Thus X," "Perhaps Y," and so on. The question words qatlh and chay' are the same - indicators of reasoning processes.
If the speaker wished to state "perhaps not," chaq + [sentence with appropriate negative suffix attached to verb] is the solution I have come to use as best practice:-
teH'a' mu'meylIj - Are my words true?
jagh Duj wIHoHta''a' - Did we kill the enemy ship?
chaq [wIHoHta'] - Perhaps so.
chaq [teHbe'] - Perhaps not.
I've never heard of chaq used on its own - a pity since it'd be a great "maybe" response to go alongside HIja' /HISlaH yes and ghobe' no - so I'd never use just *chaq* alone; it'd be "chaq bIlugh" or something similar, depending on whether I'm saying "maybe so" or "maybe not."
Something similar for "not so;" I'd balk at *vajHa'* because to my mind and ears, *vaj qarHa'lu'* "It is inaccurate", *vaj teHbe'lu'* "It is not true" or even *vaj ngeblu'* "It is false" make better - sounding constructs.
And, in all likelihood, raise fewer Klingonist hackles if I use them.