[tlhIngan Hol] qep'a' webpage

SuStel sustel at trimboli.name
Wed Jul 5 10:52:08 PDT 2017


On 7/5/2017 1:26 PM, David Holt wrote:
>
> ghItlh mayqel qunenoS:
>
> >> DaH qep'a' ve'meH bonablaH.
>
>
> >If the {ve'} as a verb of movement follows the same rules with {jaH}, and the sentence 
> refers to a single person, then..
>
> >shouldn't this be {DaH qep'a'Daq Dave'meH bInablaH} or {DaH qep'a' Da'vemeH bInablaH} ?
>
>
> Since the {bo-} prefix is used on the main verb, the sentence is not 
> referring to a single person.  To be safe, this should be, {DaH 
> qep'a'Daq bove'meH bonablaH}.  The {-Daq} is actually optional and 
> should not be a point of contention or argument.
>
It's not that it's optional; it's that it's redundant. Let me use an 
example that makes it clear what is an object and what isn't (assuming 
*ve'* works like *jaH*).

*jIH muve'
*/he travels to me
/I am his destination. *jIH* is the object of *ve'.*

*jIHDaq ve'
*/he travels on me
/He's riding on my back, or something like that. The destination is 
unstated. You can tell that *jIHDaq* is not the object of *ve'* because 
the verb prefix agrees with /he/she/it/they/none./

*jIHDaq muve'
*/he travels to at-me; he travels to me-as-location
/This is grammatical; you're just marking /me/ explicitly as a location. 
The verb prefix agrees with *jIHDaq* and shows that that's its object. 
But since *ve'* includes the notion that its object is a location, this 
is redundant. I have tried to reproduce its effect in the English 
translation above. The Klingon is more formally grammatically correct 
than the English.

Unfortunately, the line from the movie is simply *jIve'.* We don't 
actually know whether it is a "verb of motion" or not. Since it is 
compared to *leng,* which is a verb of motion, my money is on *ve'* 
being one too.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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