In Star Trek V, there’s a scene where tlha'a HoD says “'entepray''a'?” and it’s captioned in English as “Enterprise?” Surely, he wasn’t adding the type nine verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, so what was he doing? * Using the type one noun suffix “-'a'” to mean something like “The great Enterprise?” * Referring to the “Enterprise-A” with registry number NCC-1701-A * Momentarily forgetting proper grammar for a moment because he was so excited * Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed * Adding the verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, after all * Some combination of some of the above possibilities * Something else Are there other examples where the interrogative marker is added to a noun for a similar kind of sentence fragment as a question? Has Maltz ever commented on this?
On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 at 06:13, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
In Star Trek V, there’s a scene where tlha'a HoD says “'entepray''a'?” and it’s captioned in English as “Enterprise?” Surely, he wasn’t adding the type nine verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, so what was he doing?
* Using the type one noun suffix “-'a'” to mean something like “The great Enterprise?” * Referring to the “Enterprise-A” with registry number NCC-1701-A * Momentarily forgetting proper grammar for a moment because he was so excited * Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed * Adding the verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, after all * Some combination of some of the above possibilities * Something else
I think the description of the {qaghwI'} in TKD is referring to this: <The apostrophe indicates a sound which is frequently uttered, but not written, in English. It is a glottal stop, the slight catch in the throat between the two syllables of "uh-oh" or "unh-unh", meaning "no". When Klingon {'} comes at the end of a word, the vowel preceding the {'} is often repeated in a very soft whisper, as if an echo. Thus, Klingon {je'} "feed" almost sounds like {je'e}, where the articulation of the first {e} is abruptly cut off by the {'}, and the second {e} is a barely audible whisper.> Klaa is making an exclamation: "The Enterprise?!" {'entepray'a} And by the way, his parents were so excited when he was born that this echo is even found in his name: {tlha'a}! -- De'vID
On Nov 17, 2018, at 01:29, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 at 06:13, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote: In Star Trek V, there’s a scene where tlha'a HoD says “'entepray''a'?” and it’s captioned in English as “Enterprise?” Surely, he wasn’t adding the type nine verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, so what was he doing?
* Using the type one noun suffix “-'a'” to mean something like “The great Enterprise?” * Referring to the “Enterprise-A” with registry number NCC-1701-A * Momentarily forgetting proper grammar for a moment because he was so excited * Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed * Adding the verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, after all * Some combination of some of the above possibilities * Something else
I think the description of the {qaghwI'} in TKD is referring to this: <The apostrophe indicates a sound which is frequently uttered, but not written, in English. It is a glottal stop, the slight catch in the throat between the two syllables of "uh-oh" or "unh-unh", meaning "no". When Klingon {'} comes at the end of a word, the vowel preceding the {'} is often repeated in a very soft whisper, as if an echo. Thus, Klingon {je'} "feed" almost sounds like {je'e}, where the articulation of the first {e} is abruptly cut off by the {'}, and the second {e} is a barely audible whisper.>
Klaa is making an exclamation: "The Enterprise?!" {'entepray'a}
I might have been willing to believe that if it weren’t quite so enunciated. It really does sound like 'entepray''a'. Klaa’s pitch also rises slightly with the -'a', a prosody consistent with the use of the interrogative marker, whereas if that vowel were merely an artifact of the qaghwI' I would expect the pitch to remain flat, in addition to becoming quieter (which it also doesn’t do). I checked the canon archive on klingonska.org and found this: http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1989-06-09-st5.txt&q=%27entepray%27... That transcript records the utterance as “'entepray''a'?”: KLAA {'entepray''a'?} (Enterprise?) It says “The Klingon material added is both from the "Notes from ~Star Trek V: The Final Frontier~" article in {HolQeD} 8:4, and David Yonge-Mallo's transcript of ST5.” I don’t have the text of that HolQeD handy, but I trust it’s accurate, and I don’t know who this “David” fellow is (perhaps you know him?), but I trust he knows what he’s talking about.
And by the way, his parents were so excited when he was born that this echo is even found in his name: {tlha'a}!
-- De'vID _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 at 14:03, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
I don’t have the text of that HolQeD handy, but I trust it’s accurate, and I don’t know who this “David” fellow is (perhaps you know him?), but I trust he knows what he’s talking about.
pIHba' ghotvam. ghaH yIvoqQo'! -- De'vID
On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 12:13 AM Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
In Star Trek V, there’s a scene where tlha'a HoD says “'entepray''a'?” and it’s captioned in English as “Enterprise?” Surely, he wasn’t adding the type nine verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, so what was he doing?
* Using the type one noun suffix “-'a'” to mean something like “The great Enterprise?” * Referring to the “Enterprise-A” with registry number NCC-1701-A * Momentarily forgetting proper grammar for a moment because he was so excited * Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed * Adding the verb suffix “-'a'” to a noun, after all * Some combination of some of the above possibilities * Something else
Are there other examples where the interrogative marker is added to a noun for a similar kind of sentence fragment as a question? Has Maltz ever commented on this?
Contextually, it seems like it's supposed to be a question. "The Enterprise? Really?" My guess is that it's a slang construction, adding the interrogative verb suffix to a noun to ask whether something really is that noun. Maltz has never commented on it, so I assume it's not a particularly common sort of slang. Is MO at the qepHom going on? Maybe someone there can ask him real quick.
* Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed
* Adding the verb suffix "-'a'" to a noun, after all
* Some combination of some of the above possibilities
* Something else
While it's difficult to say for sure, I'd say this is probably either slang or an example of mu'mey ru' - "words or phrases [...] coined for a specific occasion, intentionally violating grammatical rules in order to have an impact". As KGT mentions, "A common way to create these constructions is to bend the grammatical rules somewhat, violating the norm in a way that is so obvious that there is no question that it is being done intentionally." Based on the dialogue in the rest of the film, Klaa speaks the same dialect that we're used to, and is no doubt aware that -'a' is a verb suffix. However, he's also young and brash; perhaps he relaxed his grammar in the heat of the moment, or perhaps his disregard for proper grammar conveys his irreverence for authority in general (kind of reading a lot into it, but it does fit his character). It could also be an example of clipped Klingon, albeit of a variety we haven't seen elsewhere. //loghaD ________________________________ From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces@lists.kli.org> on behalf of nIqolay Q <niqolay0@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 18:35 To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org Cc: tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] 'entepray''a'? On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 12:13 AM Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net<mailto:daniel@dadap.net>> wrote: In Star Trek V, there's a scene where tlha'a HoD says "'entepray''a'?" and it's captioned in English as "Enterprise?" Surely, he wasn't adding the type nine verb suffix "-'a'" to a noun, so what was he doing? * Using the type one noun suffix "-'a'" to mean something like "The great Enterprise?" * Referring to the "Enterprise-A" with registry number NCC-1701-A * Momentarily forgetting proper grammar for a moment because he was so excited * Using a dialect or slang where forming questions this way is allowed * Adding the verb suffix "-'a'" to a noun, after all * Some combination of some of the above possibilities * Something else Are there other examples where the interrogative marker is added to a noun for a similar kind of sentence fragment as a question? Has Maltz ever commented on this? Contextually, it seems like it's supposed to be a question. "The Enterprise? Really?" My guess is that it's a slang construction, adding the interrogative verb suffix to a noun to ask whether something really is that noun. Maltz has never commented on it, so I assume it's not a particularly common sort of slang. Is MO at the qepHom going on? Maybe someone there can ask him real quick.
participants (4)
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Daniel Dadap -
De'vID -
Felix Malmenbeck -
nIqolay Q