[tlhIngan Hol] How to say *Doctor Who*, *do*, restrictiveness of adjectives and some other short questions

[luis.chaparro at web.de]

Thank you for your answers, SuStel!

> I'd use vIghaj instead of vIghajpu'. You're not saying you performed an act of having and finished it. You're describing your state over a period of time. That calls for no perfective.

This is again a *Spanish problem*. In Spanish both options are possible, but in this context I wouldn't use the Spanish imperfective tense. Anyway, for what we have discussed in past posts I think I understand your point (actually, I was about to write *vIghajbe'* at the beginning :-)

> vIlaDtaH is fine here. "Continuous" doesn't necessarily mean the activity occupied every moment over the period of time. jIlaDtaH doesn't preclude the possibility of getting up for a snack and then going back to reading, for instance.

Yes, I know, I was rather asking if *vIlaDpu'* would be a correct option if I didn't want to emphasize the continuous aspect of the action, and just wanted to speak about the action being completed (I guess this question makes more sense from a Spanish perspective, sorry).
 
>> 5. *'op Daq* = *some place*, *'op Daqmey* = *some places*, right?
> No. 'op Daq and 'op Daqmey both mean unspecified number of places. I don't believe we've been told that 'op does the same plural thing that Hoch does, and if it did, that's not what they would mean anyway. In English, some place (or someplace) means "a place that is not clearly identified," while some places means "unspecified number of places."

Ok! I guess *some place* and *somewhere* are both *vogh*? For uncountable nouns the meaning is obviously singular, right? *'op bIQ* = *some water*.

But how could we say something like: *Is there any book about Klingon here?* Would you use *'op paq* or simply *paq*?

> You pick a more specific verb. ta' accomplish is a common one for your examples: ghInjaj jaj wa' je veb nuq Data'? What will you accomplish next Saturday and Sunday? DaHjaj pagh vIta'pu'. I haven't accomplished anything today.
> But there are other ways to translate do that might be more appropriate in different senses.

When should I use *DIgh*?

> In the real world, the title Doctor Who is actually a verbless question: "Doctor Who?" It's a fill-in-the-blank that basically means the same as "What is the Doctor's name?" But the question 'Iv Qel? means Who is the Doctor? Not quite the same thing.
> So, unfortunately, translating Doctor Who is a mess.

:-) Ok, but leaving the powerful Time Lords (and Ladies) aside, how would you say e.g. *Captain who?*. Since *'Iv* and *nuq* appear in the same place as the answer, I was thinking about *qIrq HoD* -> *'Iv HoD*. And there my question about which word Klingons would use, *'Iv* as in English or *nuq* as in Spanish. But probably I'm messing things up and I should recast (*What's the captain's name?*).

That leads me to another question: When acting as a pronoun in the sense of *to be*, is the position of the question word relevant? Because we have the canon *Dochvam nuq* but also *nuq mI'lIj*. But personal pronouns always come after the noun.