[Tlhingan-hol] A few questions about grammar re: adverbials, noun-like words

[Felix Malmenbeck]

1)  From paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 8, Stanza 11:


jatlh ‘e’ mevDI’ qeylIS, lop

chaq tugh batlh Heghmo’

‘ej chaq tugh charghmo’

After Kahless's words, they celebrate,
For they may soon die with honor!
For they may soon be victorious!

Another example is from paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 17, Stanza 11:

reH batlh SuvtaHjaj chaH

Let endless battle and honor await them!

...and another, in paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 23, Stanza 3:


Hay’chu’ luneHqu’

vaj pe’vIl joqqu’

cha’ tlhIngan tIqDu’

Both Klingon hearts beat,
At their strongest,
In lust for blood.

...and I believe there are plenty more examples.

2) Epithets like petaQ appear to function as ordinary nouns. paq'batlh contains petaQ'e', petaQ'a', petaQvam and petaQmey.

Names also seem to be able to take at least some noun suffixes. paq'batlh gives us qeylIS'e' and qeylISma'.

Hoch and latlh are marked as nouns in TKD.
HochHom is a standard expression, usually translated as "most" or "greater part". paq'batlh also gives us HochvaD and Hoch'e'.
latlhpu' has also been used in canon. http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1997-06-holqed-06-2.txt&get=source

I have no idea about numbers. TKD tells us

Numbers are used as nouns. As such, they may stand alone
as subjects or objects or they may modify another noun.

However, this may simply be referring to the fact that they can act as stand-alone subjects and objects.
paq'batlh mentions SaD law' to mean "thousands", which is very "noun:ish" of SaD.
My feeling is it should be fine, but I'm far from certain.

________________________________
From: nIqolay qarpatya' [niqolay0 at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 22:53
To: tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
Subject: [Tlhingan-hol] A few questions about grammar re: adverbials, noun-like words

Hello! I've got a few questions about some minor points of Klingon grammar. I've been messing around with Klingon for years, and I try to follow the KLI mailing list and the updated lists of new words and canon, but there's still some things I have questions about.
1) Is there any canon, one way or the other, on the acceptability of using multiple adverbials in one sentence? DaH tagha' qayaj! ("Now I finally understand you!"), pay' bong Heghpu' ("His death was a sudden accident.") It seems like it should be acceptable, or at least understandable, but I suppose that could probably be said about a number of utterances now known to be non-grammatical.

2) Likewise, can epithets, number words, and quantity words be suffixed like regular nouns? To what extent would sentences like the following be permissible:
DujwIj tI'Ha' taHqeq'a'pu'vetlh! ("Those colossal jackasses botched the repairs on my ship!")
pIj Seng cha'vam ("These two are trouble.")
"Neo", wa''a' SoH ("Neo, you are the One.")
latlhpu' tIvoqQo'. ("Don't trust the others.")
Hochqoq nuja'pu' ("He told us 'everything'." i.e. "He claims he told us everything but I don't believe him.")
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stodi.digitalkingdom.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol/attachments/20130423/b936937d/attachment.html>