[Tlhingan-hol] Variant word order

Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh qeslagh at hotmail.com
Sat May 5 20:14:57 PDT 2012


I was just rereading back through some old stuff and came across this from
the "Star Trek: The Experience" invitation:

laS veghaS HIltonDaq {Hov leng: yIjeSchu'} qaSchoHmo', bIlopqu'meH HIlton
yIghoS.
"Come celebrate the grand opening of "Star Trek: The Experience" at the 
Las Vegas Hilton."

I was suddenly struck that {Hov leng: yIjeSchu'} qaSchoHmo' demonstrates
subject-verb word order rather than verb-subject as is normal for Klingon.
Then I remembered that we've actually seen this before, and with the same
verb:

qeylIS DIS chorghvatlh loSmaH jav qaStaHvIS
"in the Year of Kahless 846" ('u' Invitation)

I wonder if we might be seeing a rare construction in which the subject is
brought to the front to emphasise it or bring it into focus. Both of these
are from pretty heavily emphatic contexts.*

* Outside the game, of course, I realise this is just a canonised mistake.
But it's fun to ponder. :)

QeS 'utlh
 		 	   		  


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