On 2/18/2021 10:18 AM, Will Martin wrote:
Also, I appreciate the insight into the use of {-‘e’} on the last noun in {X ‘oH Y’e’} sentences. {tlhIngan ghaH Qanqor’e’} does get it’s “Krankor is a Klingon” translation through the mechanism of “Krankor is the topic of the sentence, 'He is a Klingon.’” Translation compresses the latter into the former. We are talking about Krankor when we say, “He is a Klingon."
Well, yes, but I wouldn't call this insight on my part: it's explained fairly explicitly in TKD when the topic (ahem) is introduced. *puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e'*/The prisoners are children./ *pa'DajDaq ghaHtaH la''e'*/The commander is in his quarters./ These sentences might also be translated /As for the prisoners, they are children; As for the commander, he is in his quarters./ / /
Okrand was trying to work out the mechanics of a language with no verb for “to be”, and came up with two mechanics. One is to imply “to be” in all the adjectival or stative verbs.
I wouldn't look at it this way. In English it is required to use /be/ to assign an adjective to a subject as the main thrust of a sentence; Klingon does away with this middleman and just makes all qualities equal to other verbs. You "do" *Quch* just as much as you "do" *qet.* To mentally insert a /be/ every time you see a verb of quality is to think in English or some similar language. When I see *Quch tlhIngan,* I think /A Klingon *Quch*es./
The other is to use pronouns as both subject and verb, like {tlhIngan ghaH.} Meanwhile, in “Krankor is a Klingon,” you have this additional noun. What do you do with THAT?
I consider the idea that the pronoun "acts" as the verb to be a simplification of what's really going on, to explain the grammar to an English speaker who can't conceive of a complete sentence without a verb (i.e., the intended audience of the book). In Klingon, a copula links either a noun with a pronoun or two nouns. Saying *tlhIngan ghaH* is to say *tlhIngan = ghaH:* you're explicitly setting the antecedent for your pronoun. You can use verb suffixes on the pronoun because you're allowed to modify that equals sign to better reflect the identity: is the identity continuous? negative? relative? interrogative?
So, he made the subject noun the Topic of the sentence, and instead of placing this extra noun more like other {-‘e’} marked topics at the beginning of the sentence, which would have made it {Qanqor’e’ tlhIngan ghaH},
Except for *qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS *and "fronted" sentences like *HaqwI''e' DaH yISam,* he has never done this. The former is a comparative or superlative and may not operate on the rules of basic sentences. The latter specifically explains that the marked noun is the object, so it's not a case of a free-floating topic noun (and Okrand has said fronting this way is marked and wouldn't be done regularly). So except for special cases, he has never used a free-floating topic noun. I have serious doubts whether they're used by Klingons.
Note that {Qanqor’e’ tlhIngan ghaH,} doesn’t break any rules and would effectively have the same meaning as {tlhIngan ghaH Qanqor’e’.} Likely, it’s a valid expression, though through habit and convention, Klingons always order the words {tlhIngan ghaH Qanqor’e’.} Using the unconventional word order wouldn’t be technically wrong, but at the least it would be “highly marked” suggesting that you don’t speak the language very well.
Correct. *Qanqor'e' tlhIngan ghaH* may not break any rules, but it's obviously not the right way to say this. I could imagine this to be another case of fronting. A bit of punctuation would make the use-case clearer:**Imagine a scene where Rich pulls off his rubber forehead and reveals that he's got a real Klingon forehead underneath. Everyone is stunned, and someone says *Qanqor'e'! tlhIngan ghaH!* /Krankor! He's a Klingon! /In any case, just because you can imagine a way it might be said doesn't mean it's now open season on the grammar. I mean, there's nothing actually /wrong/ with speaking like Yoda, and everyone will understand you, but that doesn't mean you want to emulate it for anything other than speaking like Yoda. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name