[tlhIngan Hol] ghelwI'

SuStel sustel at trimboli.name
Tue Sep 5 07:14:18 PDT 2017


On 9/5/2017 9:04 AM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
> and I ask again..
>
> "..However, if one of the meanings given by the {-wI'} is "thing which 
> does/is", then why not translate {ghelwI'} as "thing which 
> asks"/"thing which is asking" i.e. a question ?.."

It has been pointed out to you that *ghelwI'* might indeed be translated 
as the question itself, in the same way that a *ghItlhwI'* might be a 
person writing or a pen writing. However, this is assuming that a 
question is a thing that can /ask./ One might say a question is nothing 
but an utterance that conveys the asking of a person. The question is 
not asking a question. We don't know how Klingons view this linguistically.

When you used it in another thread, I understood what you were saying, 
but that's not the same as saying it's the right way to say it. In a 
neutral context, I'd be much more inclined to assume a *ghelwI'* is a 
person or device asking a question than the question itself. Since you 
can easily avoid the problem by not trying to turn /question/ into a 
Klingon noun (/I have a question/ --> *jIghelnIS*), it's best to chalk 
this up to "we don't know" and leave it at that.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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