[tlhIngan Hol] qepHom 2018 - Games

[Lieven L. Litaer]

Am 20.11.2018 um 22:48 schrieb Felix Malmenbeck:
> Do we know how {nel} is used in a sentence?

Good you ask, I almost forgot to include that, as it was not a complete 
message we received.

Briefly, Okrand agreed that {nel} is used like {rur}.

Background:
At the qepHom, we played the game where you have to find two matching 
cards. (In German, we call that "memory", but Okrand told me that in 
English it's called "concentration".)

I wanted to call the game something like {nelwI'} or {tInelmoH}, which 
Okrand rejected both, as it sounds strange. See the message here:

-----------------------------------
As for {nel} -- The more I think about it, {tInel} is not so good. But 
{tInelmoH} is not so good either. You are correct -- {nel} works like 
{rur}. So you can say {A nel B} "B matches A." You can also say {nelchuq 
A B je} "A and B match each other." When you say {tInel}, the subject 
(unspoken, because it's an imperative) is "you," but what is the object? 
  If you say {A yInel}, the subject is "you" and the object, presumably, 
is A, but this would mean something like "Match A!" (that is, it's a 
command for you to match A or match up with A. Similarly, {A B je tInel} 
is a command for you to be a match with both A and B.

Let's look at the construction if imperative is not involved (and let's 
switch to singular). What would {Danel} mean? {A Danel} is something 
like "you match A." {A B je Danel} is "you match both A and B" (that is, 
you are a match with A and you are also a match with B).  That's not 
what we're trying to say.

So how about {nelmoH}? {A DanelmoH} might mean "you cause A to match," 
but match what? {A B je DanelmoH} might mean "you cause A and B to 
match," but that doesn't mean A and B are matching each other -- it 
means you cause A and B to match something else -- but what?

The problem is that {nel} takes a subject and an object (the two things 
that match each other), but not a third thing. And you can't use the 
prefix trick with {nelmoH} because there is no non-third-person indirect 
object.

So to give the command "Make A match B," you have to do it periphrastically.
-----------------------------------

So I labeled the game with {chang'engmey}.


-- 
Lieven L. Litaer
aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
http://www.klingonisch.de
http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/StarTrekDiscovery