[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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