[tlhIngan Hol] Multiple question words / markers in a sentence

[Will Martin]

I see {SaH’a’ ‘Iv} as explained as an indirect quotation of {bISaH’a’} wrapped within the question {‘Iv Datlhob?} “Who are you asking if he is here?” 

It is a sensible question, but it does rely on the concept of indirect quotation, paraphrasing an earlier utterance with the person of the subject of {bISaH} adjusted as it would be adjusted in English in an indirect quotation.

The original question was “Are you here?” A direct quotation would be “Who are you asking, ‘Are you here?’? The indirect quotation would be “Who are you asking if he is here?”

I don’t think I’m making this up. I think this is how indirect quotations work in English, though this one is a bit twisted, since the outer sentence and the indirect quotation are both questions.

Your suggestion that it isn’t an indirect quotation, but instead some sort of encapsulated question seems to be missing the grammatical point here. You are off in some meta-grammatical focus on meaning without recognizing that the mechanism is indeed indirect quotation. I don’t even believe this is my opinion. I think it’s just how the grammar works.

I’m sure that several people will likely disagree. Please, before you disagree, just take a moment to think about how indirect quotes work in English. We change the person of the subject doing the thing we are quoting, just like it was done in this double-question. It’s so easy and natural to do in English, you don’t even realize that you are doing it. It just flows, as if it were part of the original pre-verbal idea, when it isn’t.

It’s English.

And you stuff that into a Klingon sentence and that’s how it comes out, with you very innocently not realizing what you did. Otherwise, why change {bISaH} to {SaH}?

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Feb 18, 2019, at 10:20 AM, Alan Anderson <qunchuy at alcaco.net> wrote:
> 
> How does your “indirect quotation”reference apply to the {bISaH'a'/SaH'a' 'Iv} exchange?
> 
>> 
>> You have encoded an indirect quote from English into a Klingon sentence. It’s not a translation. It’s encoding. Any English speaker might be able to figure out what you are saying, but would a Klingon understand it? I doubt it.
> 
> The way I see it, it’s not even a translation. It’s a natural utterance, asking for clarification about a vaguely-addressed question, with the entire short exchange taking place entirely in Klingon and with no other language involved.
> 
>> {nuq legh ‘Iv} makes more sense. You are asking for two different bits of information in one sentence. Two question words would be replaced by the answer words. But when you combine the yes/no question with the question word question, you are just being grammatically weird and coming up with a story to explain it, apparently expecting the rest of us to approve of this and pretend that it’s a useful grammatical thing to know for the future as we make up future sentences.
> 
> The “story” is something that actually happened, and provides context with which to understand *why* the apparent double question came to be said. The subsequent explanations and analyses seem appropriate to me: In the context where this {SaH'a' 'Iv} appeared, only the {'Iv} is expected to be answered, while the {-'a'} “question” will remain in the answer.
> 
>> 
>> I think you have gone a bridge too far on this one.
>> 
>> charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan
>> 
>> rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.
>> 
> 
> — ghunchu’wI'
> 

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