On Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 14:49 mayqel qunen'oS, <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

De'vID:

...

What would these sentences mean? {jImIp. vaj vIghro' tIQ vIje'} {jImIp. ngugh vIghro' tIQ vIje'} {jImIp. ghIq vIghro' tIQ vIje'}

{jImIp. vaj vIghro' tIQ vIje'} I'm rich. So I buy an ancient cat.

{jImIp. ngugh vIghro' tIQ vIje'} I'm rich. At this time (i.e. at the time that I'm rich) I buy an ancient cat.

{jImIp. ghIq vIghro' tIQ vIje'} I'm rich. Subsequently (i.e. at a moment in time after I have become rich) I buy an ancient cat.

Where in the last two sentences do you actually say anything about a time? -- De'vID

My impression of {nbugh} and {ghIq} is that they are for establishing a sequence of events, not conditional and causal relationships. wo’rIv HIv qIrq, ngugh qIrq DuQ wo’rIv — Kirk hit Worf at the same time Worf stabbed Kirk. Sisko qIp Q, ghIq Q qIpqu’ Sisko — Q punched Sisko, then Sisko decked Q. In the ancient cat example, the relationship is more causal: you bought the ancient cat because you are rich; or you bought the ancient cat while you were rich (but are no longer rich). It’s about the meaning behind the relationship between you being rich, and you buying the cat. —jevreH Sent from my iPad

On Apr 29, 2019, at 09:53, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

I get the impression, that the time is implied from the {ngugh} and {ghIq}. Isn't it so ?

~ m. qunen'oS _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 9:53 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

I get the impression, that the time is implied from the {ngugh} and {ghIq}. Isn't it so ?

{ngugh} and {ghIq} make reference to other times that have been stated, but they don't really imply times on their own.

Since {ngugh} points to or refers back to a previously established time reference, if that time reference is not clear (or is missing), an utterance containing {ngugh} would not make much sense. If someone asks "When?" after hearing a sentence containing {ngugh}, unless the question resulted from inattentiveness, {ngugh} was probably used inappropriately.

http://klingonska.org/canon/1999-11-05-news.txt

{jImIp} on its own doesn't really establish a time reference. It's a stative verb, so it describes an ongoing state rather than an event or occurence. It doesn't include any tense or aspect information. It could refer to a point in time, like if I find a hundred dollar bill lying on the ground and I say {jImIp!}. Or it could refer to some general ongoing state of wealth. Bill Gates has been rich since at least the nineties and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future. If Bill Gates said {jImIp. ngugh vIghro' tIQ vIje'.}, when would {ngugh} refer to? The day he became a millionaire? The day he became a billionaire? Yesterday? Today? Tomorrow? He's rich at all those times. {ngugh} wouldn't have a clear time reference to work with. In the case of {ghIq}, the canon examples I can think of don't use stative verbs. {jImIp. ghIq vIghro' tIQ vIje'.} seems like it would mean "I am rich, and then after I'm rich (and am not rich anymore), I buy an ancient cat." (Assuming the listener got any meaning from it at all, instead of simply saying {nuqjatlh?}) Turning {jImIp} into a reference to a specific event, like your earlier idea of {jImIpchoH}, would make it clearer in both cases.

charghwI':

One imagines I’m rich, thus I buy the ancient cat One imagines that I’m rich — at the time that one imagines that I’m rich, I’m going to buy the ancient cat Ditto for “subsequently”. One imagines I’m rich and after they have imagined that I’m rich, here in the real world, I buy the ancient cat, even though I’m not rich.

There is something with your analysis, which contradicts my understanding of the {... net jalchugh, vaj ...} construction. The way I understood it prior to this thread, was that the {vaj} refers not to the act of imagining (i.e. not to the net jalchugh), but to the "what" I imagined (i.e. the sentence that precedes the net jalchugh). The way I understand the {jImIp net jalchugh, vaj vIghro' tIQ vIje'}, is not "I would buy the ancient cat if one imagined I were rich", but "I would buy the ancient cat if I were rich". The prerequisite for me buying the ancient cat, isn't that someone needs to have first imagined it; it's the fact that I need to be rich. If my understanding is correct, then I can't understand how at the sentence {jImIp net jalchugh, ghIq vIghro' tIQ vIje'}, you write that "One imagines I’m rich and after they have imagined that I’m rich, here in the real world, I buy the ancient cat, even though I’m not rich". According to your analysis, the {ghIq} acts to the {net jalchugh}; however, according to my understanding, the {ghIq} and of course the {vaj} act not on the {net jalchugh} but to the sentence that precedes it. I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm writing this to demonstrate my confusion on the matter.. And if someone could clarify this, it would be great. ~ m. qunen'oS Dun *ainur*pu', 'ej Dunqu' melkor

SuStel:

yIjatlh: Ainupu'. wa' Ainu, Ainur law'

hmm.. ngoDvam vISovbe'pu'.. maj ! bIjatlhta', vaj jIHeQ: Dun *ainu*pu', 'ej Dunqu' melkor. ~ m. qunen'oS

This is new territory, and perhaps someone else has more detail from any canon description of how {jal} gives Klingon the irrealis — the ability to talk about something that hasn’t happened and is likely never going to happen — can speak with more authority than I can. We used the language for a couple decades without this, and to be honest, I don’t see your average Klingon using this construction very many times in his life. Without clarification from Okrand, just working from my experience with the language, {vaj} logically puts me in the world being imagined, but {ghIq} doesn’t give me that logical link back into the imagined world. It’s just a time stamp for the next clause. Even with {vaj}, I wince a little, because it tempts me toward stringing together two Sentence As Object constructions, which is never a good thing. {jImIp net jalchugh vaj vIghro’ tIQ vIje’ net jalnIS, je.} That is ugly. It’s the construction I think is called for here, but it messes up the whole sentence boundary issue of SAO, with a SAOOSAO (Sentence As Object Of Sentence As Object). Bleah! In English, {vaj} and {ghIq} are both translated as “then”, but one is the logical “if/then”, while the other is just “X happens, then Y happens”. American Sign Language replaces this version of “then" with “Finished”, which describes it pretty well. There’s a boundary between two actions. That boundary is the completion of the first action. So, first someone imagines that you are rich, and then you buy an ancient cat. One happens, then the other happens. The first thing is imagined, and the completion of that act of imagining precedes the real world act of you buying the ancient cat. In any case, I really think that you would better describe your fantasy of being rich and buying an ancient cat with {mIp’a’wIj vIjalDI’ reH vIghro’ tIQ vIje’ta’bogh vIjal je.} "When I imagine my great wealth, I always also imagine the ancient cat I bought.” It doesn’t even require an irrealis, since you imagine the wealth and you imagine the cat. These are real imaginings. The forthrightness and clarity feel natural for the language. What you want is an irrealis equivalent of the way time stamps work in Klingon. “Tomorrow, I go visit my cousin. We go shopping. We buy coffee. We sit and chat. I go home.” All that happens “tomorrow”. You want to say, “I imagine that I am wealthy”, and you want that context of an imagined Universe that has a wealthy you in it to be the context that holds for a later statement. I’m not sure that Klingon can do that. It might be able to do it with {vaj}, but it probably doesn’t do it with either of your other two choices, unless Okrand says so, in which case, I’m just a clueless whiner who imagines that he knows how to speak Klingon. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Apr 30, 2019, at 1:00 PM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

charghwI':

...

One imagines I’m rich, thus I buy the ancient cat One imagines that I’m rich — at the time that one imagines that I’m rich, I’m going to buy the ancient cat Ditto for “subsequently”. One imagines I’m rich and after they have imagined that I’m rich, here in the real world, I buy the ancient cat, even though I’m not rich.

There is something with your analysis, which contradicts my understanding of the {... net jalchugh, vaj ...} construction.

The way I understood it prior to this thread, was that the {vaj} refers not to the act of imagining (i.e. not to the net jalchugh), but to the "what" I imagined (i.e. the sentence that precedes the net jalchugh).

The way I understand the {jImIp net jalchugh, vaj vIghro' tIQ vIje'}, is not "I would buy the ancient cat if one imagined I were rich", but "I would buy the ancient cat if I were rich". The prerequisite for me buying the ancient cat, isn't that someone needs to have first imagined it; it's the fact that I need to be rich.

If my understanding is correct, then I can't understand how at the sentence {jImIp net jalchugh, ghIq vIghro' tIQ vIje'}, you write that "One imagines I’m rich and after they have imagined that I’m rich, here in the real world, I buy the ancient cat, even though I’m not rich".

According to your analysis, the {ghIq} acts to the {net jalchugh}; however, according to my understanding, the {ghIq} and of course the {vaj} act not on the {net jalchugh} but to the sentence that precedes it.

I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm writing this to demonstrate my confusion on the matter..

And if someone could clarify this, it would be great.

~ m. qunen'oS Dun *ainur*pu', 'ej Dunqu' melkor _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On 4/30/2019 3:22 PM, Will Martin wrote:

This is new territory, and perhaps someone else has more detail from any canon description of how {jal} gives Klingon the irrealis — the ability to talk about something that hasn’t happened and is likely never going to happen — can speak with more authority than I can. We used the language for a couple decades without this, and to be honest, I don’t see your average Klingon using this construction very many times in his life.

It's fairly simple. the *net jalchugh* clause sets up a condition, and the rest of the sentence is the irrealis contingent on that condition. The irrealis is not indicated morphologically in Klingon. *jImIp net jalchugh, puH Duj chu' vIje'*/If I were rich, I would buy a new car./ The Klingon sentence literally means /if one imagine that I am rich, I buy a new car./ The irrealis comes strictly from the idea that someone is just envisioning something. The Klingon irrealis of this kind is in the indicative mood. There is no grammatical subjunctive mood in Klingon.

Without clarification from Okrand, just working from my experience with the language, {vaj} logically puts me in the world being imagined, but {ghIq} doesn’t give me that logical link back into the imagined world. It’s just a time stamp for the next clause.

I don't see *vaj* as necessarily implying something hypothetical. *HIchwIj vIpeppu'. vaj muHIvpu' jagh.*/I raised my pistol. So the enemy attacked me./

Even with {vaj}, I wince a little, because it tempts me toward stringing together two Sentence As Object constructions, which is never a good thing. {jImIp net jalchugh vaj vIghro’ tIQ vIje’ net jalnIS, je.}

Okrand has decreed that *net jalchugh* is how Klingons form this kind of irrealis, so your sentence is not required. *jImIp net jalchugh vIghro' tIQ vIje'*//is all you need to express the concept of what I /would/ do. This is one of those Okrand-said-it-so-it's-true things.

In any case, I really think that you would better describe your fantasy of being rich and buying an ancient cat with {mIp’a’wIj vIjalDI’ reH vIghro’ tIQ vIje’ta’bogh vIjal je.} "When I imagine my great wealth, I always also imagine the ancient cat I bought.”

Except this is not how Okrand describes the irrealis construction required. He doesn't say it can't have its variations, but you're going out of your way to move mayqel's conforming use to a non-conforming one.

It doesn’t even require an irrealis, since you imagine the wealth and you imagine the cat. These are real imaginings. The forthrightness and clarity feel natural for the language.

That's not what irrealis means. The hypothetical part of the sentence is the buying of the ancient cat, not the existence of the cat or the wealth. The existence of these other things is not commented upon in the sentence.

What you want is an irrealis equivalent of the way time stamps work in Klingon. “Tomorrow, I go visit my cousin. We go shopping. We buy coffee. We sit and chat. I go home.” All that happens “tomorrow”.

You want to say, “I imagine that I am wealthy”, and you want that context of an imagined Universe that has a wealthy you in it to be the context that holds for a later statement. I’m not sure that Klingon can do that.

That is exactly what *net jalchugh* does. *jImIp net jalchugh, lorwI' vISuch, 'aH wIje', qa'vIn wIje', maba' 'ej majaw, ghIq juH vIchegh.//*/If I were wealthy, I would visit my cousin, we would buy stuff, we would buy coffee, we would sit and chat, and then I would go home./ All of that only happens in my fantasy of "if I were rich." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

ghItlhpu' SuStel, jatlhpu':

There is no grammatical subjunctive mood in Klingon.

ghIq chuHpu', jatlh:

I say that, but actually there is: -jaj forms a subjunctive mood.

Being careful, of course, to distinguish "subjunctive" (as in, a more general term for counterfactual moods) from more classical meanings of subjunctive mood. More strictly, because it refers specifically to wishes or hopes but as far as we know not to other types of irrealis constructions (counterfactual conditionals, for instance) typically handled with subjunctives in other languages, Klingon -jaj marks the optative mood. (Personally, I prefer to stick with "optative", but not for any other reason than that there's such inconsistency on the term "subjunctive" in linguistic literature on many European languages, primarily because of influence from grammatical descriptions of Latin (as freakin' usual). Latin lacks a distinct optative mood and uses what Latin grammarians referred to as the subjunctīvus - ironically, derived mostly from the optative in Proto-Indo-European, where it was distinct from the subjunctive - for wishes and hopes as well as for counterfactual conditionals, concessions, and a range of other functions.) QeS 'utlh

On 4/30/2019 6:44 PM, Will Martin wrote:

Okay, so {net jalchugh} sets a context for the remainder of the sentence. It sets the mood, like a time stamp sets the time setting. The question then arises as to how much staying power this mood anchor gives us. As stated, it works for the rest of the sentence. Would it work for the rest of a paragraph? (Not that we know that Klingons HAVE paragraphs.)

I don't see why not. The phrase establishes a context, in the same way that saying *wa'leS* establishes a context. Barring any evidence to the contrary, I'd feel perfectly free to use a *net jalchugh* to establish a context for however long it seems to hold. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name