[tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure

[nIqolay Q]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 5:15 PM nIqolay Q <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 4:18 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:
>
>> I really think you are taking {Do’Ha’} and {qay’be’} and other
>> fossilized, common responses to situations too seriously.
>>
> [...]
>> Consider {rIntaH} and {qar’a’?}. You can’t look at these and derive
>> general rules about Klingon grammar.
>>
>
> I acknowledged in my post that *rInta**H* and *qar'a'* are weird
> examples. (Although in TKD their weirdness is just in where they go in the
> sentence: the translation of *rIntaH* as "it continues to be finished" or
> "it remains accomplished" isn't presented as being in any way unusual.)
>
> But do you have any justification whatsoever for arguing that *Do'Ha'*
> and *qay'be'* are fossilized forms rather than ordinary sentences? Did I
> miss a memo from Maltz somewhere? (Or are you just mad that your stylistic
> preference isn't supported by canon?)
>

I did find two more examples of a third-person subject standing in for a
previous utterance. The first is from HolQeD 12:3, pages 8-10 (
http://klingonska.org/canon/2003-09-holqed-12-3.txt):

Maltz distinguished this phrase from another "Oh, yeah?" meaning simply "Is
> that so?" (as in "I just heard some interesting news." "Oh, yeah? What is
> it?"). This would be {qar'a'}, literally <is (it) accurate?> ({qar} <be
> accurate>, {-'a'} <question>).
>
This is *qar'a'* again, so it might not count as an all-new example. But in
this case, it's presented as an ordinary sentence on its own, not as an
auxiliary verb. The description is brief, but it doesn't say anything
about "it"
as a subject being an unusual way to refer to what's just been said. The
second is from paq'batlh (Book paq'raq, Canto 5, lines 1-3, page 109):

*qotar qotar qotar *
> *   DachchoH cha' qa'*
> *   'e' DaSov 'ach chay' qaS*
>
> *Kotar, Kotar, Kotar!*
> *   Two of your souls are missing,*
> *   You can sense it, but how can it be?*
>
In line 3, *chay' qaS* ("How does/did it happen?") has no explicit subject,
and the "it" refers to the fact that Kotar's souls are missing. The next
lines are dialogue by Kotar yelling at Fek'lhr, so it's not the case that
the subject of *qaS* was moved to the next line. I admit that it doesn't
appear to be a very common construction, but with four canonical examples (four
and a half, maybe, with *rIntaH*), I can't agree that it's ungrammatical.
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