[tlhIngan Hol] Verbs of measure

[Will Martin]

In my fantasies, I think of myself as defiant enough to use a Type 7 suffix on the main verb of a second sentence in a Sentence As Object construction… but in fact, when I’m writing and I’m faced with an opportunity to do this… I find some entirely different way to state what I was going to say that doesn’t involve SAO at all, especially since I think that overusing it is lazy. There are often other ways of saying things, especially when the temptation is to string out multiple SAOAOAOAO constructions.

So, yes, I do accept the rules and follow them, but typically not by implying a missing Type 7 in SAO. More likely, I’ll just recast the whole thing and avoid the entire issue. Ditto for {-moH} ditransitives. I don’t have to break rules I don’t like. I can just go somewhere else and avoid the entire problem.

For me, the whole point of writing in Klingon is to work within the limits and still come up with clear, meaningful expressions. I’ll make enough unintentional mistakes. I don’t need to make any intentional ones.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Mar 27, 2019, at 1:43 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:07 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com <mailto:willmartin2 at mac.com>> wrote: 
> I mean, if you can just imagine a pronoun that can act as subject of the second sentence and represent the first sentence, why not just imagine a pronoun acting as object of the second sentence that represents the first sentence? Poof! No need for {‘e’} or {net}. Any sentence can just be invisibly represented by any unstated pronoun acting as subject or object in the following sentence.
> 
> You can already do that. For example, 
> TKD: vIta'pu'be'. I didn't do it.
> 
> There's also this dialogue from ST6:
> https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html <https://www.kli.org/tlhIngan-Hol/2006/May/msg00201.html>
>  
> Chang:   narghta'?  narghta'.
>              ([They have] Escaped.)
> Grokh:   qay'be'. Daq SovlaHbe'taH qIrq.
>              (Kirk cannot know the location of the peace conference.)
>              {It does not matter ... Kirk cannot know the location.}
> Chang:   DaSovbej'a'?  bISuDrup'a'?
>              (Are you sure? Will you take that chance?)
>              {Are you sure [of that]? ... Are you willing to take that
>               chance?}
> 
> DaSovbej'a' has an unstated pronoun as object, referring to Grokh's sentence. (Grokh's sentence also uses qay'be', with an unstated subject referring to Chang's earlier statement that Kirk and Spock had escaped.) Leaving out 'e' might cause confusion if there's something else in the context that might also work as a third-person subject, and the two sentences may feel less connected into a single thought, but it's not the end of the world if you leave it out.
> 
> So, I repeat, it is not ungrammatical. It is merely hideous. You can’t rely on your reader/listener to consistently realize, “OH, I GET IT. THAT UNSTATED SUBJECT OF THE SECOND VERB REPRESTENTS THE ENTIRE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. WHAT A GREAT IDEA? WHY DIDN’T OKRAND THINK OF THAT?
> 
> He did think of that, at least four times. I mentioned them in my earlier posts. I assume the reason he did not spell this out formally is because he didn't think he needed to explain to his audience how to use "it".
> 
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