[tlhIngan Hol] jIH Daq DopDaq

Will Martin willmartin2 at mac.com
Wed Mar 10 09:49:48 PST 2021


I’m going to state the unobvious pleasure of bringing up topics such that, even if I am proved wrong, clarifies the grammar on points that were otherwise not brought up in discussion.

I don’t mind being wrong. It is educational for me, and perhaps for others.

Note that it is not so important that I am not wrong that I defend my ego by ranting onward once challenged.

Were that others more consistently followed my example.

Our shared understanding of the grammar is a higher goal than our strutting on our little stage.

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)



> On Mar 10, 2021, at 12:14 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 3/10/2021 11:33 AM, Will Martin wrote:
>> It’s also good to remember that in all of this, any time we add {-Daq} to a noun, we are talking about the location where something happens. We are not talking about the location of a noun independent of any verb, as a sentence fragment.
> Untrue. DujDaq means ship (as a location) whether or not something is happening at the ship.
> 
> naDev means the location known as here.
> 
> Locatives are locatives whether they're in sentences or not.
> 
> Would you object to a book or chapter title DujmajDaq on our ship or SermanyuQDaq on Sherman's Planet? I wouldn't: they're perfectly sensible locatives.
> 
> 
> 
>> This goes back to the “cat in the hat” problem. Klingon doesn’t have a mechanism for using {-Daq} to refer to the location of a noun, except through the location referring to the action of a verb.
> The cat-in-the-hat problem is not a problem of referring to the location of a noun; it's a problem simply of syntax. Nouns with Type 5 suffixes on them are not allowed to modify other nouns in the noun-noun construction. There's no conceptual reason why they can't. It's strictly a rule of syntax. meHDaq quS makes perfect sense as on-the-bridge chair. It's just not an allowed syntax.
> 
> Your statement isn't even true as a technicality. I can easily use locatives without using verbs: meHDaq 'oH HoD quS'e' The captain's chair is on the bridge. No verb there. There's no difference in syntax between meHDaq 'oH HoD quS'e' and vIqraq 'oH HoD quS'e'. Both sentences link the captain's chair with another noun. The locative has no special verbal significance.
> 
> 
> 
>> {Dung} is a noun that can be a subject or an object of a verb. {DungDaq} is a locative for the action of a verb. Attempts to use {DungDaq} as a subject or object would indeed be an edge case of grammar, probably without canon to back it up. It would, at the very least, be highly uncommon, though in poetry, all bets are off.
> 
> Nonsense. Locatives can be used as the objects of verbs if the verb imparts a locative sense to its object. DungDaq vIjaH I go to the area is a legal, if redundant, sentence, and the locative is the object of the verb. The locative has to be the object of the verb. If I said DungDaq jIjaH, it would mean I'm in the area above and going somewhere, which is not what I wanted to say.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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