[tlhIngan Hol] Don't be alarmed, now.

[Will Martin]

Thanks to both SuStel and ghunchu’wI’. This was exactly what I was looking for. I was sure that my weak familiarity with this area of vocabulary was at the root of the problem, and yes, I meant 2nd person. [Kick self for lack of mindfulness.]

> On Oct 31, 2021, at 7:50 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 10/31/2021 7:38 PM, Alan Anderson wrote:
>>> On Sun, Oct 31, 2021 at 6:12 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:
>>>> If we had a verb for “be alarmed”, you could say, {yI-[be alarmed]Qo’}, but the verb is {ghum} — “alarm, sound an alarm”. In a Statement, we could build “be alarmed” out of {glumlu’}, but when you put the {yI-} on it, the subject is expected to be the First Person.
>>> 
>>> Or you could say {yay'} "be shocked, dumbfounded" or {bIt} "be nervous, uneasy". The English "be alarmed" doesn't really have anything to do with alarms.
>> Agreed. ghum refers to becoming aware of something; alarmed has to do with an emotional state.
>> 
>> I would have no trouble reading bItqu' as be alarmed. Nervousness or uneasiness, taken to an extreme, could be a state of alarm.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> {yI-} is *not* a First Person prefix, but I will assume you know it's Second Person subject and just misspoke.
>>  
>>> Well, the statement “I am alarmed,” would be {vIghumlu’} or “-indefinite subject- alarms me."
>>> 
>>> Does the imperative prefix do the same {-lu’} trick pointing to the object instead of the subject? Is {yIghumlu’} valid for “Be alarmed!”?
>> 
>> I'm going to have to go with an unequivocal "No".  The indefinite subject suffix doesn't "point" the meaning of a word to anything that the word doesn't normally point to. It *always* means the subject is indefinite. That is completely incompatible with imperatives, which *always* have a second-person subject.
> Agreed. Imperative impersonal subject makes no semantic sense in Klingon.
> 
> I might translate this as yIbItqu'Qo' or yIbItHa'qu''eghmoH.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
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