[tlhIngan Hol] {'e' qa'} "instead of" with the {qa'} bearing suffixes

[Will Martin]

I agree that it’s tricky. The attempt to stretch the complexity of the construction hid the flaw in thinking through the expression.

While I accept that this is canon, I remember the old days when marquS spoke about the reason that we can’t as a group invent new words because a newbie who bought TKD and the other official Klingon materials would have no way to know that {‘I’} meant “armpit” (which was later canonized, to the merriment of all).

It’s gotten to the point that a Klingonist can’t rely solely on Simon & Schuster to give them everything they need to translate Klingon in either direction. There is no longer a publication that provides what we in the KLI have collected to be the materials needed to know the language.

You now need TKD to provide The Constitution level explanation of the grammar, boQwI’ for the vocabulary, and access to sufficient canon to explain the use of {-moH} with two objects or the use of {qa’} as the second verb in SAO, which at its heart is a Sentence As Subject tagged on to a Sentence As Object. The use of the semicolon in the English translation makes it clear that this is more than a simple use of context to explain the subject of {qa’}. The sentence before the semicolon is the subject of {qa’}.

But why limit that to {qa’}?

It’s only a matter of time before a new TKD will need a section on SAS.

And how many other new grammatical constructions will we get that could never be derived from TKD, while there will never be a third edition?

wejpuH.

> On Nov 18, 2021, at 10:21 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 11/18/2021 10:04 AM, De'vID wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 at 15:17, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name <mailto:sustel at trimboli.name>> wrote:
>> I agree that turning an entire sentence-as-object construction into a subordinate clause heads toward too much complexity, but given the relative simplicity of the rest of it, I don't think this reaches the limit.
>> pu' DIlo'; yan DIlo' 'e' qa'chugh, maQap.
>> If we use phasers instead of swords, we'll win.
>> 
>> If the sentence-as-object construction were any more complicated, it would probably be too much for me to accept it stylistically. But I have no problem with this one.
>> 
>> 
>> While I had no problem understanding the intended meaning of the Klingon sentence, I wonder if the {-chugh} isn't attached to the wrong thing. The way it's written, it looks like "we use phasers" is a statement, not a conditional.
>> 
>> Maybe it should be {pu' DIlo'chugh, maQap; yan DIlo' 'e' qa'}. I know that looks weird, but the grammar of {'e' qa'} is weird.
> You're right! We mustn't think of pu' DIlo'; yan DIlo' 'e' qa' as a verbal phrase.
> 
> Maybe this can be simplified using the common shortcuts like so:
> 
> pu' DIlo'chugh, maQap; yan qa'.
> If we use phasers, we will succeed. It replaces swords.
> 
> I don't know whether this works in the more formal style, however.
> 
> Tricky.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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