tlhIngan maH. taHjaj. The first sentence obviously means “We are Klingons.” Given that “we” are plural, it’s obvious that the Klingons that we are — are also plural. The second sentence? Since the subject is not first person plural, we’re not saying, “May we endure.” It’s third person. Singular? Plural? Given context, I’d say plural. So, what third person plural noun were we just given in context? “Klingons”. “May Klingons endure!” Our wish is not merely that WE endure, but that all Klingons endure. It’s stylistically appropriate to omit the second instance of the noun {tlhIngan}, though it would not be in any way inappropriate to include it. It’s just a matter of personal style. TKD tells us that repeating a noun in a situation like this is not considered wrong, yet a lot of canon examples suggest that the omission is also not in any way wrong. So, “We are Klingons. May Klingons endure!” It’s got nothing to do with the pronoun {‘e’} or with any attempt at *Sentence As Subject*, which is not a legal grammatical construction in Klingon. We’re just saying two different things about Klingons: 1. We are members of their race. 2. We wish them to continue/endure. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Sep 28, 2020, at 1:18 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 9/28/2020 12:11 PM, Luis Chaparro Caballero wrote:

...

...But then I'm not sure if I understand the sentence in "Star Trek Discovery":

tlhIngan maH. taHjaj.

Isn't the subject of "taHjaj" the sentence "tlhIngan maH"? Something like: "It may endure, that we are Klingons", or "Our being Klingons may endure"? What is otherwise the subject of "taHjaj"? Shouldn't we use here some sort of noun, like in "paq Daje'pu'. QaQ wanI'vam." I'm probably missing something important, sorry! This sentence is not canonical Klingon — Okrand didn't write or approve it — so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I've heard Qov explain her thinking behind it, but I can't quite remember what she said about it. I'm pretty sure she said it wasn't meant to be interpreted as a sentence-as-subject. The sentence is also meant to be a slogan, not formally grammatical Klingon. I don't think it's even meant to be considered as two completely separate sentences. We don't even know for sure what the elided subject actually is. Is this Clipped Klingon? So many questions...

This was my speculation on it in that thread: http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2018-February/007284.htm... <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2018-February/007284.html> -- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

I thought the example was from Star Trek: Discovery. Is that not canon? charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Sep 28, 2020, at 4:40 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 9/28/2020 4:34 PM, Will Martin wrote:

...

tlhIngan maH. taHjaj.

The first sentence obviously means “We are Klingons.” Given that “we” are plural, it’s obvious that the Klingons that we are — are also plural.

The second sentence? Since the subject is not first person plural, we’re not saying, “May we endure.” It’s third person. Singular? Plural? Given context, I’d say plural.

So, what third person plural noun were we just given in context? “Klingons”.

“May Klingons endure!”

Our wish is not merely that WE endure, but that all Klingons endure.

It’s stylistically appropriate to omit the second instance of the noun {tlhIngan}, though it would not be in any way inappropriate to include it. It’s just a matter of personal style. TKD tells us that repeating a noun in a situation like this is not considered wrong, yet a lot of canon examples suggest that the omission is also not in any way wrong.

So, “We are Klingons. May Klingons endure!”

It’s got nothing to do with the pronoun {‘e’} or with any attempt at *Sentence As Subject*, which is not a legal grammatical construction in Klingon. We’re just saying two different things about Klingons:

1. We are members of their race.

2. We wish them to continue/endure. That's one possible interpretation. Here's another: it's Clipped Klingon, short for tlhIngan maH. mataHjaj!

And yet another: a noun has elided: tlhIngan maH. taHjaj ghu'vam!

Or a more specific one: tlhIngan maH. taHjaj wo'!

Or maybe this is an example of a verb whose subject is just so well understood that it's never actually stated, like when a Klingon feels water falling from the sky and says SIS. What is the subject of SIS? Nothing specific, but we understand the sentence all the same.

The point is we don't KNOW exactly what the grammar of this non-canonical sentence is, so we shouldn't go developing our understanding of grammar on it.

-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On Sep 28, 2020, at 4:48 PM, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:

I thought the example was from Star Trek: Discovery. Is that not canon?

It’s canonical Star Trek. Marc Okrand didn’t provide the Klingon dialogue for Discovery, though. -- ghunchu'wI'

On Mon, 28 Sep 2020 at 22:57, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 9/28/2020 4:40 PM, SuStel wrote:

“May Klingons endure!”

That's one possible interpretation. Here's another: it's Clipped Klingon, short for *tlhIngan maH. mataHjaj!*

And yet another: a noun has elided: *tlhIngan maH. taHjaj ghu'vam!*

Or a more specific one: *tlhIngan maH. taHjaj wo'!*

Or maybe this is an example of a verb whose subject is just so well understood that it's never actually stated, like when a Klingon feels water falling from the sky and says* SIS.* What is the subject of *SIS?* Nothing specific, but we understand the sentence all the same.

Or another: it's really *tlhIngan maHtaHjaj** May we continue to be Klingons.*

This was the original intended interpretation. Qov retroactively changed it into two sentences because the Appendix to TKD says, in Sec. 4.2.9, that when {-jaj} is used, "there is never a Type 7 aspect suffix". (This rule has been contradicted in canon by {wo' DevtaHjaj ghawran} on KGT p.25-26). -- De'vID

On 9/29/2020 6:47 AM, Luis Chaparro Caballero wrote:

Thank you for your detailed email! I understand it now much better.

I have only two last questions:

...

Pronouns can and usually should be dropped when they're acting as nouns, but nouns shouldn't be turned into pronouns unless you've already made clear what the pronoun is. I understand what you mean when you explain the use of pronouns for clarity. But then I don't understand what TKD means with "for emphasis".

TKD throws around the term /emphasis/ with little regard for its meaning. In this case, just understand it as meaning clarity.

...

"Pronouns may be used as nouns, but only for emphasis or added clarity. They are not required." *yaS vIlegh jIH'e'* means "I, and not someone else, see the officer". That's clear, that's a semantic focus. But is there absolutly no difference between *yaS vIlegh* and *yaS vIlegh jIH*? I'm a Spanish native speaker and in Spanish personal pronouns are mostly not necessary. When we use them, we do it in order to clarify or to make them somehow "important" in the conversation. If we want to get the "and no someone else" effect, then we stress the pronoun or actually say "and not someone else", but without this extra stress saying a pronoun when it's not necessary to clarify just give it some "importance". For example, we have to print some documents and I say: "*I* have a printer at home". In Spanish I use the pronoun because the person who has a printer is here "important". But that's not the same as saying: "I, and not someone else here, have a printer at home". I would say it if someone is lying and saying he or she has a printer, but I know that only I have one.

There is no evidence that a Klingon pronoun used explicitly, without marking or stress, indicates some kind of importance. *yaS vIlegh* and *yaS vIlegh jIH* are semantically identical.

My second question is again about punctuation. I have understood that these sentences have the same meaning:

*paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov* *paq Daje'pu'. 'e' vISov*

But is there no difference even if someone makes a longer pause when speaking? Something like in English: "I want to eat something and then I will read" and "I want to eat something. And then I will read".

I would understand that as someone adding an afterthought after a pause. You don't say or write that way intentionally (unless you're affecting an afterthought). You should think of sentence-as-object constructions as if they were single ideas. A Klingon who says *paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov* isn't saying two separate things; it's just one idea. Consider the sentence *romuluSngan HoHpu' tlhIngan 'e' vIleghbe'*/I didn't see the Klingon kill the Romulan./ The idea here isn't that the Klingon killed the Romulan AND that I saw it. We don't know if the Klingon actually killed the Romulan; all we know is that I didn't see any such act. It's one idea. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

Most modern languages have punctuation, so we tend to assume that writing always includes punctuation. Many older languages lacked it. My understanding is that it is a relatively new addition to Japanese, and even there it is considered optional. The Romanized Klingon writing that we use is phonetic, representing Klingon sounds. Adding punctuation is probably an incremental step toward a detailed musical notation for Klingon speech that could include pitch and amplitude, as well as tempo and rhythm. It merely adds a sense of phrasing and clarity, but it really is not tied to the grammar the same way it is in normal written languages. It’s optional in Klingon. I like it, because it makes Klingon text easier to parse, but for SAO, Okrand tells us that in Klingon you definitely have two grammatically independent sentences, though it is usually translated into English as one sentence. So, do you punctuate it according to Klingon grammar, or do you punctuate it according to how it will be translated by those who are reading the Romanized written Klingon, which, you might consider, an actual Klingon speaker probably couldn’t read… In other words, you are not punctuating it for a Klingon. You are punctuating it for an alien race of people trying to communicate in the Klingon language. That’s why it’s not important to put a period between the two sentences in SAO. You’ll find that it’s actually quite uncommon to do so among writers here. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Sep 29, 2020, at 6:47 AM, Luis Chaparro Caballero <luis.chaparro@web.de> wrote:

Thank you for your detailed email! I understand it now much better.

I have only two last questions:

...

Pronouns can and usually should be dropped when they're acting as nouns, but nouns shouldn't be turned into pronouns unless you've already made clear what the pronoun is.

I understand what you mean when you explain the use of pronouns for clarity. But then I don't understand what TKD means with "for emphasis".

...

"Pronouns may be used as nouns, but only for emphasis or added clarity. They are not required."

*yaS vIlegh jIH'e'* means "I, and not someone else, see the officer". That's clear, that's a semantic focus. But is there absolutly no difference between *yaS vIlegh* and *yaS vIlegh jIH*? I'm a Spanish native speaker and in Spanish personal pronouns are mostly not necessary. When we use them, we do it in order to clarify or to make them somehow "important" in the conversation. If we want to get the "and no someone else" effect, then we stress the pronoun or actually say "and not someone else", but without this extra stress saying a pronoun when it's not necessary to clarify just give it some "importance". For example, we have to print some documents and I say: "*I* have a printer at home". In Spanish I use the pronoun because the person who has a printer is here "important". But that's not the same as saying: "I, and not someone else here, have a printer at home". I would say it if someone is lying and saying he or she has a printer, but I know that only I have one.

Well, that doesn't mean it must be so in Klingon too, of course. I'm only trying to understand, since I'm a beginner and I cannot judge what's right or not in Klingon.

My second question is again about punctuation. I have understood that these sentences have the same meaning:

*paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov* *paq Daje'pu'. 'e' vISov*

But is there no difference even if someone makes a longer pause when speaking? Something like in English: "I want to eat something and then I will read" and "I want to eat something. And then I will read".

Thanks! _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org