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

Lieven L. Litaer levinius at gmx.de
Mon Feb 18 05:28:40 PST 2019


ja' charghwI':
> 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.

I agree with that. Even though it may sound "logical" in that sentence, 
I doubt it's grammatically correct to have a {legh'a' 'Iv}. The -'a' 
suffix indicates a yes/no question while the 'Iv requires an answer. In 
such a situation, I can see Captain Kirk talking to the M-5 computer who 
destroys himself not knowing what to answer to such a question.

{legh'a' 'Iv?} - {HIja'!!}

When giving the English example it's also not a yes/no question any 
more: Does he see it? -> Who does see it? and not "Does who see it?"

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



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