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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/20/2020 4:55 PM, Will Martin
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:F3A72879-2F94-445B-88F3-C1022622E749@mac.com">
<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>
</blockquote>
<p>When you use a copula sentence in Klingon, you're not saying the
two things are synonymous. You're saying there is a link between
them. The verbal suffixes on the pronoun and the syntactic
suffixes on the noun tell you what that link is.</p>
<p><b>nIHDaq 'oH puchpa''e'<br>
</b><i>The bathroom is on the right.</i><b><br>
</b>The link between <b>nIH</b> and <b>puchpa'</b> is that when
talking about the bathroom, its location is on the right.</p>
<p><b>HoD ghaHvIp torgh'e'<br>
</b><i>Torg is afraid to be the captain.<br>
</i>The link between <b>HoD</b> and <b>torgh</b> is that when
talking about Torg, he is afraid of being the captain.</p>
<p><b>jagh chaHbe' Human'e'<br>
</b><i>The humans are not enemies.<br>
</i>The link between <b>jagh</b> and <b>Human</b> is that when
talking about humans, they have a negative identification with
enemies.</p>
<p>Don't think of copula sentences as working like basic sentences,
with subject and objects and verbs. They follow their own
completely distinct grammar.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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