[tlhIngan Hol] The book of our good captain

mayqel qunenoS mihkoun at gmail.com
Fri Jul 15 02:44:57 PDT 2016


nachwIj 'oy'moH QIn ghomvam..

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 11:08 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14 July 2016 at 14:00, DloraH <seruq at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 2016-07-14 at 11:31 +0200, De'vID wrote:
>>> Note the quotes around the word "question". If Okrand had really been
>>> asked straightforwardly whether a question (any sort of question) can
>>> be the object of a sentence, I'd have expected the report to say "You
>>> can not use a question as an object" without the quotes. To me, it
>>> reads like the questioner was confused about terminology and was using
>>> the word "question" (in quotes) to mean "sentences where question
>>> words are misused as relative pronouns".
>>
>> No, those quotes were not from confusion about the word "question".
>> In plain-text, there is only so much that one can do to express things.
>> We can't bold, can't italicize, you can't see my face or hands.  I used
>> quotes to emphasis that I was talking about an actual question.
>> Back then, there was much arguing on this list about QAO.  At that
>> convention I even started my question with "Much blood has been
>> spilled..."  I believe I even heard someone mutter "Uh-oh", and the look
>> on some of the faces, I think they knew what was coming.
>> MO said we cannot ask a question in a QAO.  I think someone put out an
>> example, and MO said he couldn't figure out what it would actually mean.
>> And for the relative pronoun, at the time, MO wasn't sure if Klingon had
>> that, or if it did, would they be the same words, the way English uses
>> the same words for both.
>
> I guess I'll just have to go back and try to understand what the
> controversy was from the archives. I can't imagine what would be
> controversial about a sentence like {nuq Datlhutlh DaneH}. OTOH, one
> can certainly construct QAO sentences which are meaningless, like
> *{HIq Datlhutlh'a' DaneH}, and which I can understand would be
> disallowed.
>
> It's also fairly easy for an English speaker to misinterpret a QAO
> construction as a sentence with a relative pronoun, e.g., misinterpret
> {chay' DaHoH 'e' vISov} as "I know how you killed him". And perhaps
> attaching the {chay'} to {DaHoH} makes for something hard to
> understand, and it's easier to parse this sentence to mean "how do I
> know you killed him", which would be clearer as {DaHoH chay' 'e'
> vISov}. I can see a case here for banning {qatlh} and {chay'} from the
> first sentence of a SAO. But I can't see any reason why substituting a
> noun for {nuq} or {'Iv} in the first sentence of a SAO would cause any
> problems.
>
> That is, I can see problems with some QAOs, but not all of them. It
> seems that the community wanted a binary answer (all or nothing) and
> got one.
>
> Since the qep'a' is less than a week away, maybe y'all can shed more
> blood about this with Dr. Okrand.
>
>>> The suggestion to recast, as I read it, applies only to sentences
>>> where an attempt is being made to use question words as relative
>>> pronouns.
>>
>> The "recast" meant if you find yourself here, recast.  For both
>> questions and pronouns.
>> We know about using [ngu'].  "Which weapon do you want?" [nuH DaneHbogh
>> yIngu']  The English is a question, but the Klingon is a command.
>
> How would you recast a question like {'Iv wISuv 'e' ra' HoD}?
>
> --
> De'vID
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