[tlhIngan Hol] adverb {vaj} conjunction "then" "thus" "and then" "and thus"

Iikka Hauhio fergusq at protonmail.com
Mon Jan 24 04:41:08 PST 2022


It is certainly allowed to use vaj in the way it is used in the Duolingo sentence. Compare to these canon sentences:

nuHlIj DawIvpu', vaj yISuv.
You have choosen your weapon, so fight. (TKW)

jIlay'ta' 'ej batlh jIpabta' vaj choDanIS
I have kept my word of honor, And so should you, (paq'batlh)

tlhIngan Hol DaHaD - vaj choquvmoH. Qapla'!
(Marc Okrand signed Roger Cheesbro's TKD)

I'm not sure what SuStel means by the word "conjunction" in this situation. There are several words that are "conjunctions" in Klingon, but there is no rule that only a conjunction can appear between sentences. I don't see any problem with using vaj like one would use a conjunction in English. Klingon's parts of speech are defined differently than the English parts of speech.

Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio
https://klingonia.fi/en

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Monday, January 24th, 2022 at 14.30, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> (This concerns a discussion having taken place in Discord some days ago. I'm posting this here, since one can't easily follow a discussion being interrupted by a continuous feed).
>
> In Duolingo there's the sentence: {cha' loDnI'pu' ghaj vavwI' loDnal, vaj cha' tennuS vIghaj}
>
> Someone translated this as "My father's husband has two brothers, thus I have two uncles", and Duolingo replied "Incorrect. Answer: My father's husband has two brothers, so I have two uncles".
>
> Then SuStel commented:
>
> *****quote starts*****
>
> I doubt it's an allowed option, but It would need to be and thus. So is a conjunction when used this way; thus is not. Either that, or you'd need a semi-colon before the thus, but the course generally doesn't push two independent clauses together without being in a sentence-as-object construction or conjoined.
> Hm. I wonder if it's even formally correct to use so as a conjunction like this.
> And since the Klingon doesn't have a conjunction either, it's probably just a bad example all around.
>
> *****quote ends***
>
> I'm not concerned with Duolingo, so I'm not asking regarding which sentence it should accept as the correct one. But what I don't understand is the following.
>
> I was under the impression that the adverb {vaj} was more or less a way to express things like "because something happens, happens something else"; and if I remember correctly the {vaj} was all we had before the {-mo'}. The way I understand {vaj}, it is used to lead to a logical conclusion as a result of something which was already stated.
>
> I can't understand the comment about it being a conjunction, when used in the way of the Duolingo sentence.
>
> It seems perfectly normal to say: "my father's wife has two brothers, so I have two uncles", which would be the equivalent of "because my father's wife has two brothers, I have two uncles". Or alternatively "my fathers wife has two brothers, so (and the logical conclusion follows) I have two uncles".
>
> --
> Dana'an
> https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/
> Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
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