On 10/10/2017 12:00 PM, nIqolay Q wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what kinds of "noun series" modelled along variations of *beyHom bey bey'a'* would also feel right or wrong to you (and other Klingonists reading this)?
* Using a *-Hom/-0/-'a'* series in a non-direct-object role, e.g.: *Qe' chu' luSuchtaH ghomHom ghom ghom'a'* /"Bigger and bigger crowds visited the new restaurant; the new restaurant drew ever-increasing crowds."/
Works for me. I don't think its position in the sentence has any bearing on how it's interpreted.
* Using a different set of suffixes that suggest some other kind of spectrum, e.g.: *qa'qoq qa'Hey qa' qa'na' vIleghtaH* /"I was dismissive of the idea at first but I am increasingly certain that I'm seeing an actual spirit."/ (This is an awkward translation.)
I don't see these as a spectrum, and these suffixes don't express what I thought of the nouns at the time; they tell what I think of them when I say the sentence. At best I would interpret this as my seeing something someone called a spirit but wasn't, then something I think was a spirit, then a spirit, then something that was definitely a spirit. I'm seeing different things in sequence. But there's no natural interpretation of these as a sequence, so my instinct would be add a conjunction afterward and explain the sequence separately.
* Not using the same base noun but with a series implied anyway, e.g.: *jajlo' po pov tlhom puH DujDaj tI'taH */"He worked on his car from dawn to dusk." /(This example also uses a non-direct-object series, in this case a series of timestamps.)
Because the sequence is obvious, I could accept this. I would expect this to be received something like "*jajlo' *(ok)*po* (all morning, huh?) *pov* (wow, long time!) *tlhom* (still going?!) *puH DujDaj tI'taH.*
* Nouns that only imply a series in context: *'awje' qa'vIn wornagh DItlhutlhtaH* /"We started with 'root beer', then had coffee, and then we drank warnog."/
Same reaction as with the time stamps. *'awje'* (ok) *qa'vIn* (still going?) *wornagh* (wow, all that?!)*DItlhutlhtaH.* But this one really wouldn't make any difference if you conjoined them with *je:* the sense of sequence is not very strong. But none of these strikes me as so simply unambiguous as the howl-crescendo. You have to work at interpreting them. Stringing along nouns isn't just a listed sequence; it's a single concept expressed in a sequence of related words. The concept isn't "sequence"; it's "thing that changes in this sequential way." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name