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

[SuStel]

On 7/22/2022 12:20 PM, luis.chaparro at web.de wrote:
>> 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).

When we say the perfective means "completed," we don't just mean "no 
longer happening"; we mean that the action is being looked back upon as 
a whole action, without referencing /how/ it occurred over time. All we 
know is that the speaker is establishing a viewpoint on the action from 
a time after it is over in order to look back on it as a completed whole.

>>> 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*?

Yes.


>   For uncountable nouns the meaning is obviously singular, right? *'op bIQ* = *some water*.

I don't know if I'd call that singular or plural since it's an 
uncountable noun.


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

*naDev tlhIngan Hol bopbogh paq tu'lu''a'?* /Is there a book about 
Klingon here?/ The /any/ in English is really just used to emphasize the 
potential that there may actually be no books about Klingon here. I 
don't think Klingon has a feature that does this.


>> 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*?

When you want to talk about undertakings instead of accomplishments.

*wa'leS nuq Data'* asks what you plan to accomplish tomorrow, and the 
answer will be your intended goal. *wa'leS nuq DaDIgh* asks what you 
plan to undertake tomorrow, and the answer will be the actions you will 
perform.

There is not a single way to translate English /do/ here. How you 
translate it depends on what you mean.


>> 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?*).

I think you need to recast. That is, maybe Klingons will stick an *'Iv* 
in for the captain's name to ask *'Iv HoD*/Captain who?,/ but I tend to 
think not, since this also means /Who is the captain?/

In English you can also say /Captain what?/ for the same thing, but 
likewise the Klingon *nuq HoD* is a sentence meaning /What is the 
captain?,/ so it may not work.


> 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.
I don't think it matters as far as any canonical explanation we've been 
given. I'm not sure what you mean by "personal pronouns always come 
after the noun."

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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