On 12/13/2019 9:45 AM, SuStel wrote:
On 12/13/2019 9:22 AM, Will Martin wrote:
While I don’t disagree with anything in this discussion, for myself, if I wanted to emphasize the Romulans, I’d just say {jaghpu’ chaH RomuluSnganpu’’e’}.
Why is, “As for the enemies, they are the ROMULANS,” preferable to “The Romulans are our enemies.” It’s more straightforward. Saying it the other way is kinda fancy-assed for Klingon. Language and culture are related.
Because the final noun of a pronoun copula is the topic of the sentence, what the sentence is all about. If you were in a situation where you were beset by enemies and thought they were Vulcans, and you told your comrade to use the Vulcan-only-killing poison he's carrying, your comrade might say **romuluSnganpu' chaH jaghpu''e'.** The topic of your sentence is the enemies, not Romulans. You're taking the topic of your sentence and identifying them. *Those enemies surrounding us? Lemme tell you what they are...*
Now, this beset-by-enemies situation is exactly one of those where adding focus to the first noun makes perfect sense: **romuluSnganpu''e' chaH jaghpu''e'** *As for the enemies, they are ROMULANS (not something else, like Vulcans).* Again, I'm not saying this is necessarily allowed or disallowed, just that it would be something like this that would give this constructions its purpose.
This has nothing to do with being fancy.
Those asterisks are what I get for replying to list mail immediately after writing on Duolingo. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name