<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">I’ve always been curious as to why the sentence wasn’t {nuqDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH?}</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The answer would be to point down the hall and say {nIHDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH} (sung to the tune of “Theeeere’s a Bathroom, On The Right”, a.k.a. “There’s a Bad Moon On The Rise”).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It seems weird to answer {nIHDaq ‘oH puchpa’’e’.} It’s just different from all the other “to be” sentence structures. It would be like saying {maH tlhIngan’e’} instead of {tlhIngan maH.}</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">{nuqDaq} is not the thing that is synonymous with bathroom. It’s the place the bathroom is being. We usually handle that with {X-Daq ‘oHtaH.} We usually use {-‘e’} when we have a pronoun between two nouns, neither of which is a locative.</div><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan<br class=""><br class="">rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.</div>
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 20, 2020, at 11:48 AM, SuStel <<a href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" class="">sustel@trimboli.name</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="moz-cite-prefix" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">...Consider: you're in an unfamiliar place and you need to pee. You approach someone who looks like they belong there and ask them, <b class="">nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'?</b></div><p style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class="">Clearly,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">puchpa'</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is not "old information" in the sense that it is part of the previous context.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">puchpa''e'</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>itself establishes the old information, and the comment<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">nuqDaq 'oH</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>states the new content. The "old" information comes about by the speaker essentially saying "Let's talk about the bathroom" before asking "Where is it?" (Well, "before" in this case actually means "after" in Klingon grammar. It's more like<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">Where is it? The bathroom, I mean.</i>)<br class=""></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class="">So I think maybe you're overanalyzing it. I feel pretty sure that Okrand wasn't thinking very hard about the order of pronoun-based sentences, especially in the early days. I suspect that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e'</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">'Iv ghaH DevwI''e'</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are pretty much equivalent.<br class=""></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class="">Regarding your example of cats, I don't see why limiting the interpretation of the latter sentence to "the animals" is a problem. I think you're mentally adding or removing English articles to Klingon words where they don't exist.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">Ha'DIbaH</b>doesn't mean just<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">the</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>animal or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">an</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>animal or animals in general; it means all of those at once.<b class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ha'DIbaH bIH vIghro''e'</b><i class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>As for cats (in general), they are animals (a type); as for the cats (that we're talking about), they are animals (a type); as for cats (in general), they are the animals (that we're talking about); as for the cats (that we're talking about); they are the animals (that we're talking about).</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">vIghro' bIH Ha'DIbaH'e'</b><i class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>As for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are cats (in general); as for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are the cats (the ones we're talking about).</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You've got fewer interpretations the latter way (not including science fiction stories about all animals being cats in disguise or some such), but those interpretations are still valid, and nothing you can do outside of providing context can distinguish which interpretation you intend.</p><p style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class="">I mean, in English, if I say<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">I want water,</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>do I mean water in general, or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">a water</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(as in a cup or bottle of water) or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">some water</i>(an unspecified quantity of water)? All of them at once, really; the distinction isn't important. Sometimes context will give you a reason to choose one of those specifically. It's the same with your Klingon<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">vIghro'</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">Ha'DIbaH,</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>only in Klingon you don't have the choice of being more specific, you can only supply context.<br class=""></p><pre class="moz-signature" cols="72" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">--
SuStel
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