February 2021 - tlhIngan-Hol

Why the half-measure of 'e' neHbe' vavoy?
by mayqel qunen'oS 17 Feb '21

17 Feb '21

By saying {'e' neHbe' vavoy} 'a'Setbur clearly took a dump on the rules.. ..which is pretty fine, because hey, who doesn't enjoy giving the finger to the rules every once in a while. But 'a'Setbur, honey, if you're gonna break the rules, then damn it do it well. No half-ass measures. No holding back. Go all the way; don't just say {'e' neHbe' vavoy}; say {'e' neHpu'be' vavoy}. ~ Dana'an klingon bingon all the same

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law' puS with the -taHvIS and type-9 clauses preceding each element
by Will Martin 16 Feb '21

16 Feb '21

You’ve missed my point. Analysis of a Replacement Proverb is probably futile because it may very well be gibberish that lost its meaning thousands of years ago. We can process the words, shoving them through the algorithm of translation and not actually translate the meaning into anything… meaningful. I was trying to come up with something meaningful. My bad. I retract my earlier analysis, since I was leaning in toward something meaningful instead of leaning in toward something literal. It could very well mean, “On another person’s face [the fire is hottest.” And we might not really understand what that means, being perhaps a reference to a story long ago forgotten. In English, when an atheist hears someone sneeze, they might very well say, “Bless you,” out of habit/courtesy or “Ga-Zoon-Height”, even if they don’t know German. This might be like that. Note that we’re not really told that {X Q law’ X Hoch puS} means X is "Q-er than everything.” We’re told that it means “X is Q-est.” It may look like a comparative, but it’s actually a superlative. It’s not really “The fire is hotter than everything.” It’s “The fire is hottest.” It looks like it’s saying, “The fire is hotter than everything,” but that’s the logical/literal translation, as opposed to a more accurate translation of what we are told it means in Klingon. … Not that it makes TOO much difference. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’. > On Feb 13, 2021, at 3:25 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin(a)gmail.com <mailto:de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > TL;DR: You've shown that in other known canon instances of the comparative (except for {Qam[taH]vIS...}), the context in front applies to the entire comparative. Your own analysis of your interpretation of the proverb {reH latlh qabDaq qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS}, however, differs from your analysis of the other sentences, and actually applies {latlh qabDaq} only to the first half. (The only way the fire on someone else's face could be being compared to things not on that face is if {Hoch} is outside the scope of {latlh qabDaq}.) You're holding two mutually incompatible beliefs. Your explanation of the grammar of the other sentences differs from your explanation of this one, and so a reasonable conclusion is that this sentence is an exception to the others. > TL;CR (Too Long; Can’t Resend). The list rejected my reply because adding my short messaget to your long one exceeded the technical limit for a message sent to the list. So, you can look at earlier messages in the thread to find what I was responding to.

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ordinals and be-verbs
by mayqel qunen'oS 16 Feb '21

16 Feb '21

I want to say "the brave first travelers of space". logh ve'wI'pu' wa'DIch yoH logh ve'wI'pu' yoH wa'DIch yoHbogh logh ve'wI'pu' wa'DIch Which of the previous three options is/are the correct one/ones? According to tkd "Ordinal numbers follow the noun", however it's not clarified what we need to do, when we need to apply an ordinal to a noun with an adjective. ~ Dana'an attack or be slaves

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is the choice between -Daq and -vaD influenced by the way something is given?
by mayqel qunen'oS 15 Feb '21

15 Feb '21

Read the following: yaSvaD taj vInob I give the knife to the officer yaSvaD taj vIqem I give the knife to the officer by bringing it to him yaSvaD taj vIngeH I give the knife to the officer by sending it to him So when giving something to someone we use the {-vaD} regardless whether we bring it to him, or send it to him. But would we use the {-vaD} too even if we threw the knife to him? Ha'DIbaHvaD chuvmey vIvo' I give the leftovers to the animal by throwing them to it Would this sentence be correct, or does the {vo'} change something, thus making the choice of {-vaD} wrong? I don't see any reason for the choice between {-Daq} and {-vaD} to be influenced by the way something is given, but I'd like to verify this. ~ Dana'an guess who's coming to dinner

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law' puS with the -taHvIS and type-9 clauses preceding each element
by mayqel qunen'oS 15 Feb '21

15 Feb '21

There's the Ca'Non sentence: {QamvIS Hagh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS}. Based on the above could we write something like the following? Suvlu'taHvIS batlh potlh law' yInlu'taHvIS tlhuH potlh puS honor while fighting is more important than breath while living or maybe even: SuvchoHlu'DI' batlh potlh law' yInchoHlu'DI' tlhuH potlh puS as soon as someone begins to fight honor is more important than breath as soon he begins to live Based on the Ca'Non {QamvIS Hagh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS}, could I construct sentences as the above, or is the QamvIS Hegh.. some kind of "maltz-said-so-special-phrase-so-shut-up-and-don't-generalize" case? ~ Dana'an indeed, death while standing is preferable to life while kneeling

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Klingon Word of the Day: wam
by Klingon Word of the Day 15 Feb '21

15 Feb '21

Klingon Word of the Day for Monday, February 15, 2021 Klingon word: wam Part of speech: verb Definition: hunt, fish Source: TKD (113 KE, 137 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Klingon Word of the Day: Suv
by Klingon Word of the Day 14 Feb '21

14 Feb '21

Klingon Word of the Day for Sunday, February 14, 2021 Klingon word: Suv Part of speech: verb Definition: fight Source: TKD (108 KE, 133 EK) This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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law'/puS scope brief conclusion
by Will Martin 14 Feb '21

14 Feb '21

For those who chose to not read the longer post, a shorter one; a conclusion without including the process of discovery. Looking at all of the examples voragh provided of canon comparatives and superlatives, Okrand remained true to his explanation in TKD that there is no alternative grammatical structure for comparing two things in Klingon. It’s always [X Q law’ Y Q puS] where X and Y are nouns and Q is a verb of quality (like {tIn} or {chuS}). Canon examples expand on this to show that any noun phrase or relative clause can function as a noun (in the role of X or Y) in comparatives, and the entire comparative can be preceded by a dependent clause, an adverbial, or a noun with a Type 5 suffix, which provides context for the comparison. At all times, the comparison behaves as a fossilized grammatical form that does not allow alteration. In particular, while you can logically conclude that the comparison consists of two halves, each of which might exist in different contexts, each deserving different adverbials, different dependent clauses, and different Type 5 nouns in order to clarify the differences in context between the two things being compared, but that logic has no evidence of being grammatically allowed. Okrand never interrupts <[Context providing head stuff] X Q law’ Y Q puS> to form what one might logically wish to conclude would be allowed: *<[Context providing head stuff] X Q law’ [Different context providing head stuff] Y Q puS>*. Maybe more context in the future will change this, but for now, this suggested extension is not clearly valid. Assuming that you can’t have separate scope for the second half of the comparative, there’s no justification for assuming that the head stuff could be restricted to the first half of the comparative. While the logical view of the comparative sees two halves, the fossilized grammatical structure appears to be one unit, and if there are any preceding context, there’s no obvious justification for assuming it could have “scope” other than over the entire comparative. The only time one could concern oneself with the scope of what I’ve been calling “head stuff” would be if that head stuff appeared before a dependent clause preceding a comparative, since you might wonder whether the head stuff applied to the dependent clause or to the comparative, but if you think about it, since the dependent clause applies to the comparative, it’s head stuff would also apply to the comparative. Keep in mind that in a normal Klingon sentence, the head stuff applies to the verb. The verb’s action happens in the location of the locative at the time of the time stamp in the manner of the adverbial, etc. In a comparative, there is one verb that such head stuff would apply to and that verb is invariably repeated. There is no reason to assume that the head stuff would apply to one instance and not the other. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

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Klingon Word of the Day: Hop
by Klingon Word of the Day 13 Feb '21

13 Feb '21

Klingon Word of the Day for Saturday, February 13, 2021 Klingon word: Hop Part of speech: verb Definition: be remote, be far Source: TKD This Klingon Word of the Day is brought to you by qurgh (qurgh(a)kli.org)

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Resend on hottest face...
by Will Martin 12 Feb '21

12 Feb '21

I relinquish my status as the Wagnerian Klingon. I have been superseded. But not to be outdone just yet… Instead of just plowing in, restating what I already have decided is right (always the temptation for so many of us here, including myself), I clear my mind and restart my investigation. [I had to delete the rest of the thread to make this small enough to send.] Okrand’s English translation is “The fire is always hotter on someone else’s face.” We should use that as a source of insight as to what the Klingon phrase means. The first odd thing to note is that the Klingon is a superlative, while the translation is merely a comparative. {qul tuj law’ Hoch tuj puS} means “The fire is hottest”, not “the fire is hotter”. The translation says, “the fire is hotter”. Why would Okrand do that? He could have said, in Klingon, perhaps more literally, *reH latlh qabDaq qul tuj law’ qabwIjDaq qul tuj puS.* He could have replaced {-wIj} with {-maj} or some other suffix or otherwise explicitly identified the other faces providing locatives for the other side of the comparison, unless he didn’t want to break up the comparative sentence with a second context-providing locative. In other words, maybe it’s okay to either expand on the nouns, using noun phrases or relative clauses to represent nouns, or to add context to the entire comparison by preceding the whole comparison with context with dependent clauses or nouns with Type 5 suffixes or other “head of the sentence” stuff, but maybe it’s not okay to interrupt the rigid comparative grammatical structure. So, we’ve been assuming that it might be okay to have the comparative construction interrupted by context-providing stuff that only applies to the second part of the comparison to set it apart from similar stuff applying to the first half of the comparison. Let’s look at voragh’s impressive collection of canon he looked up of Okrand using it: < tlhutlhmeH > HIq ngeb qaq law' bIQ qaq puS Drinking fake ale is better than drinking water. (TKW) [Nope. No interruption. X Q law’ Y Q puS. {HIq ngeb} is a noun phrase.] < jonlu'meH > wo'maj pop tIn law' Hoch tIn puS Our Empire's highest bounty has been placed on his head. (ST5 notes) [Nope. No interruption. {jonlu’meH} gives us context for the entire comparative. I disagree with the brackets, though. I think {jonlu’meH wo’maj pop} is a noun phrase. That interpretation is more consistent with Okrand’s other examples.] < noH ghoblu'DI' > yay quv law' Hoch quv puS In war there is nothing more honorable than victory. (TKW) [Nope. The dependent clause provides a time stamp for the entire comparison.] < tlhIngan wo' yuQmey chovlu'chugh > Qo'noS potlh law' Hoch potlh puS The principal planet of the Klingon Empire, Qo'noS... (S27) [Nope. It is interesting to see an example of a comparative sentence with a dependent clause applying to it. This extends previous canon in grammatical license, but it still doesn’t interrupt the comparative construction.] < cha’ DISmo’ > jIH qan law’ SoH qan puS I'm two years older than you. (Lieven < Okrand, 7/25/2016) [Nope. Again, we have a dependent clause added before a simple comparative construction.] < cha’ ’ujmo’ > jIH woch law’ SoH woch puS I'm two 'ujes taller than you. (Lieven < Okrand, 7/25/2016) [Nope. Again, we have a dependent clause added before a simple comparative construction.] < reH latlh qabDaq > qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS The fire is always hotter on someone else's face. (PK) [The most consistent way to interpret this with other canon example is to have the locative apply to the entire comparative, since we don’t have a grammatical justification for applying a locative to a noun. Locatives apply to verbs, and we have no real explanation of how it could work applied to one or both verbs in a comparative. Using other examples as guidelines, we could interpret it as “At another persons face: “The fire is hotter than everything,” which is how a Klingon expresses “The fire is hottest”. Note that Klingon doesn’t use articles, so there’s no way to distinguish shades of meaning as we do in English between the “definite article” and the “indefinite article” (“a” and “the”), so that makes analysis a little more challenging. It seems that we have a choice between interpreting it as “Always, the fire is hottest at another person’s face”, which comes really close to Okrand’s offered “The fire is always hotter on someone else’s face.” The other interpretation is, “The fire on another person’s face is hotter than everything.” This interpretation is pretty clearly quite different from Okrand’s offering, and I wonder why we are still suggesting that this is what he meant. Note that again, there is no interruption of the X Q law’ Y Q puS structure.] < qIbDaq SuvwI''e' > SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy. (ST5) [Nope. Like the locative in the previous example, there is only one and we’re given no reason to believe that it applies only to the first half of the comparison. We additionally have the topic/focus with {SuvwI’’e’}, but again, that seems to apply to the whole comparison. We’re not saying, “You are at your most wonderful when you are among the warriors of the galaxy.” We are setting the boundaries of the entire comparison as being the warriors of the galaxy, and then making the usual simple comparison in the form X Q law’ Y Q puS. It’s not “You, a soldier of the galaxy, are the most wonderful.” That totally misses Okrand’s translation.] < DujvamDaq tlhIngan nuH tu'lu'bogh > pov law' Hoch pov puS ‘ej [< DujvamDaq 'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh > po' law' tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law’ po’ puS It [IKC Pagh] has the best weapons and some of the finest warriors in the Klingon fleet. (S7) That last example is the most complex and interesting, and I think voragh's brackets could be better placed perhaps, thusly: [<DujvamDaq tlhIngan nuH tu’lu’bogh> pov law’ <Hoch> pov puS] ‘ej [<DujvamDaq ‘op SuvwI’ tu’lu’bogh> po’ law’ <tlhIngan yo’ SuvwI’ law’> po’ puS.] I used square brackets around each of the two comparisons and <> around each noun equivalent (relative clause or noun phrase). “The Klingon weapons which are found on this ship are the best and some of the soldiers who are found on this ship are more skilled than many of the warriors in the Klingon fleet." Once again, once you compress the noun phrases and relative clauses down to nouns, the comparative grammatical construction never varies from X Q law’ Y Q puS with {Hoch} replacing X or Y to form the superlative. The thing that canon adds to what TKD told us is that you can have dependent clauses, time stamps, locatives or other Type 5 noun phrases in front of a comparative sentence to provide context for the comparison. Any further extensions or presumptive interpretations don’t seem to have a lot of traction until Okrand provides some kind of canon to suggest that it gets more flexible than this. I especially have issues with the idea that stuff at the beginning of the sentence can apply to the first half of the comparison and not the second half, since there is no evidence that one could possibly provide such context exclusively for the second half. The comparative structure is not a logical structure. It’s a grammatical fossil. You can’t monkey with it. It is not two chunks of grammatical stuff. It’s one chunk of grammatical stuff. You can add stuff before it, but you can’t add stuff into the middle, and since you can’t add it to the middle, you can’t apply stuff outside of the noun phrase/relative clause to apply to the first half of the comparison without also applying it to the second half. In other words, there is no “scope” boundary within the comparative. Any “scope” context applies to the entire comparison. Okrand has never provided us with any mechanism for limiting the scope to the first or second half of the comparison, because all of these grammatical constructions that apply to Klingon clauses apply to the verb, and in a comparative, we invariably repeat the verb. Anything that applies to the first instance of the verb also applies to the second instance of the same verb. Okrand has not provided any explanation for any grammatical mechanism for assuming otherwise. Of course, if he does, I will have simply made a mistaken, educated guess. I’m not the authority here. He is. Our opportunities to discuss these things with him are limited. We have to work with what we know and slowly eek greater detail from him when we can. I can see how you logically conclude that there could be scope boundaries within the comparative grammar, but there is no evidence that the unique restrictions of this fossilized grammar fall within the valid realm of your logic. It can easily make sense to you and still be wrong. That’s the still-searing lesson I endured with the dual-object variations on verbs with {-moH}. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

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