[tlhIngan Hol] quv, quv, quv Hurghchu'ghach joHma'

[Jeffrey Clark]

charghwI',

It should also be noted that the punctuation system as used in written
English is generally derived from spoken English; and can be (and often is)
used a set of "performance instructions".

I would go so far as to argue that apposition in Klingon can be done quite
easily in spoken Klingon (while we don't have "rules" for it, the intent
can still be clearly communicated) the same way that we do apposition in
spoken English. Using common punctuation I can even clearly communicate the
spoken difference:

{DuraS vav yIQoy.} vs {DuraS, vav, yIQoy} vs {DuraS, vav: yIQoy}. By the
use of the punctuation you can clearly tell that different things are
intended; and (based on dual-coding theory and semiotic conditioning) I'd
be willing to bet that you read each one with a different pacing as well.

So, while the use of modern English punctuation isn't actually part of
Klingon, it provides the Klingonist with a convenient way to encode aspects
of pacing and phrasing that we lack an alternative way to communicate (in
absence of clarification from Maltz). The dropping of a comma does change
communicated intent, and is thus important because it is a vital part of
Klingon as it is used to communicate within the community.

--jevreH

On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 11:34 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:

> Note that Klingon, as we know it, is a spoken language with a written
> language that Maltz has not deciphered for us. The Romanized alphabet we
> use is a phonetic representation of what is spoken, as is the punctuation.
> So far as we know pIqaD has no punctuation.
>
> So, we can argue about the change of meaning if we omit a comma, but in
> doing so, it’s a purely academic argument, since Klingon doesn’t really
> have commas. We impose commas on what we write and give meaning to those
> commas. There are no commas in the written Klingon in TKD. There are no
> question marks. All questions in Klingon are marked by grammatical markers
> or fixed phrasing among the words. We feel more comfortable when we add
> question marks because we like punctuation. Similarly, commas can
> disambiguate which clause a noun between two verbs is participating in, but
> that’s just something we made up. Maltz never told us that.
>
> So, we shouldn’t get too hung up on how a sentence would be reinterpreted
> IF WE DROPPED THE COMMA.
>
> Because there are no commas in Klingon, so far as we know. We just add
> them for clarity, because in the languages we are more accustomed to,
> that’s what commas do.
>
> charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan
>
> rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
>
> On Apr 12, 2019, at 9:26 AM, Jeffrey Clark <jmclark85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Syntactically I don’t know wha dropping the comma and making a proper name
> into the direct object would mean — names as second-person DO’s isn’t part
> of the Klingon grammar AFAIK. I agree with SuStel, that a proper name can’t
> be a second person DO, it has to be apposition or direct address; but maybe
> Klingon has rules for that which matlh hasn’t given us.
>
> Semantically, I’d read it as if the comma was there.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 12, 2019, at 09:06, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hmm.. Interesting..
>
> So, if I removed the comma, writing {SuStel qagheljaj}, then would it stop
> being direct address and turn into an object ?
>
> ~ m. qunen'oS
> ca'non holy ca'non
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
> tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
> http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20190413/fdf22a00/attachment.htm>