On 1/8/2020 9:55 AM, Will Martin wrote:
In English, we have one “to be” verb for identity or to link a subject to an adjective. In Klingon, the adjective IS THE VERB. You don’t use both forms of the English “to be” in a single Klingon sentence, and you don’t confuse which kind of “to be” question you are asking in Klingon.
I agree, and I was going to post something similar. The problem with this question is it is being supposed that /What am I? Stupid?/ can be translated literally and still mean the same thing in Klingon. In English, you can answer /I am stupid/ to the question /What am I?/ In Klingon, *jIQIp* is not an answer to the question *nuq jIH* or even *'Iv jIH.* *jIQIp* is answering a question more like *chay' vIDellu'* or *nuq vIta'.* It simply would never occur to a Klingon to ask *nuq jIH* and to get an answer *jIQIp.* You're asking for a noun and getting a verb. Having a quality in Klingon is an action. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name