Re: [tlhIngan Hol] to roar in crescendo with verbs
DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu' is grammatical and has three clauses. What SuStel meant is that the interpretation where all verbs are part of the same sentence is not grammatical (I'm not sure why that is relevant). Punctiation of Klingon is arbitrary and voluntary. Sometimes Okrand doesn't punctuate at all. It is grammatical and correct to not punctuate. However, for clarity, it is a good principle to use commas and periods when appropriate. In this case, «DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh, 'aghqu', 'aghchu'»would make clear that the verbs form different sentences (and are indeed verbs and not nouns/names, which one could think if assuming that they are all part of one clause). Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Friday, February 18th, 2022 at 15.10, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
See my notes on punctuation.
-------- Original message -------- From: mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> Date: 2/18/22 7:03 AM (GMT-05:00) To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] to roar in crescendo with verbs
jIH:
qanchoHtaHvIS nuv, choHbe'; not choHbej vay'. 'a qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey, DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu' SuStel: I wouldn't have any problem with someone stacking verbs this way in speech, but I wouldn't necessarily call it grammatical
I'm afraid I can't understand this.
In the {DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu'} sentence, the {DI'onmeyna'Daj} is the object of the {'agh}, and the subject of {'agh} is an omitted {vay'}. Can't the following verbs {'aghqu'}/{'aghchu'} have an omitted {DI'onmeyna'Daj}/{vay'} as object/subject?
I understand the reasoning why just writing {qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey, DI'onmeyna' 'aghtaH} is better, but I can't understand why the original sentence could be considered ungrammatical. I'm wondering whether there's something I'm missing regarding omitting subjects/objects.
-- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
fergusq:
DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu' is grammatical and has three clauses. What SuStel meant is that the interpretation where all verbs are part of the same sentence is not grammatical (I'm not sure why that is relevant).
So that's what's happening! Finally I understand, thanks. fergusq:
In this case, «DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh, 'aghqu', 'aghchu'» would make clear that the verbs form different sentences (and are indeed verbs and not nouns/names, which one could think if assuming that they are all part of one clause).
I'm glad to be reading this, because this answers the next thing I was about to ask. I was wondering why there's no similar problem with the original Ca'Non sentence of {beyHom bey bey'a' jachtaH}. And reading your reply I understand, that the reason there's no problem with the {beyHom bey bey'a' jachtaH} is that in this case we have nouns which can only be understood as part of the main sentence. However, since in the {'a qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey, DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu'} the thing repeated is a verb instead of a noun, one could wonder whether each {'agh} applies to the {qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey} or not. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
Keep in mind that in languages that lack tense, like Klingon (or American Sign Language, or many Asian languages), once a time stamp is established, it remains the context for everything that follows it until some new time stamp is presented. There are no sentence boundaries for a time stamp. "Tomorrow, I go to the store. I buy food. I drive to the gas station. I buy gas. I drive home." All that happens tomorrow. "Yesterday, I go to the store. I buy food. I drive to the gas station. I buy gas. I drive home." All that happened yesterday. In a language that has tense, you’d say: "Tomorrow, I will go to the store. I will buy food. I will drive to the gas station. I will buy gas. I will drive home." "Yesterday, I went to the store. I bought food. I drove to the gas station. I bought gas. I drove home." This is because in a language that has tense, you are required to set the time as now, before now, or after now for every action. You can be more specific with a time setting, but you can’t drop the ball on stating whether the actions that are linked to that time stamp are now, before now, or after now. It’s a kind of temporal redundancy that is not required in languages that lack tense. The tiny advantage of tense is that in utterances that have no other time stamp, you can indicate whether the action is now, before now, or after now. Meanwhile, languages that lack tense can do that easily and with greater specificity with a single time stamp. Once you’ve established a time context, tense becomes a useless pain in the butt for non-native speakers to keep straight in order to stop the native speakers from wagging their fingers at them for saying something that is grammatically incorrect. Meanwhile, tense provides absolutely no meaningful addition to the meaning of a sentence once the time context has been established. The only reason we think that tense is a good feature for a language is because that’s what we learned with our native language. We are familiar with it, and working without it is strange. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Feb 19, 2022, at 10:27 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
... However, since in the {'a qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey, DI'onmeyna'Daj 'agh 'aghqu' 'aghchu'} the thing repeated is a verb instead of a noun, one could wonder whether each {'agh} applies to the {qaStaHvIS yInDaj DISmey} or not.
-- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ <https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/> Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
participants (3)
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Iikka Hauhio -
mayqel qunen'oS -
Will Martin