[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: naj

[Bellerophon, modeler]

On Sat, Aug 31, 2013 at 8:13 PM, Robyn Stewart <robyn at flyingstart.ca> wrote:

> I believe the source of my confusion was relative clauses, which can occur
> in sentences like {mulegh QIppu'bogh yaS}, where the main clause {mulegh
> yaS} is interrupted by the relative clause.
>

 Funny, I accidentally replaced {qIp} from TKD with {QIp}. QIpqa'be' yaS
'e' vItul.**

Wow, that’s a weird (to me) way to look at it. To me the subject of that
> sentence IS QIppu’bogh yaS, so I feel no interruption. In the English “The
> officer who has been stupid sees me,” does the main clause feel interrupted
> to you? If not, what’s the difference? How about “I see the smiling man”?
>

Regardless of how the sentences feel, they are interrupted by the relative
clauses {QIppu'bogh} and "who has been stupid." (Interruptions of this sort
frequently leads to subject-verb disagreement errors in English. ;) Yes,
the modifier is part of a noun phrase that forms the subject, but it is not
needed for a complete sentence. The main clause is "The officer sees me."
Likewise "the smiling" interrupts the basic sentence "I see man."
Nevertheless, all of these sentences are easily intelligible.

The brevity of the interruption is what makes the sentence intelligible. It
doesn't feel like an interruption unless the duration exceeds what we
consider to be the present. German grammar, for instance, allows unlimited
modifiers to be inserted before the verb. Some old school German professors
were ridiculed for lectures in which a sentence went on for fifteen minutes
before finally coming to the verb, by which time the students had
completely forgotten what the professor was talking about. In such a case,
the interruption exceeded what the students could consider to be the
present: by the time the verb was spoken, the subject of the sentence had
faded into the past, and the whole sentence was no longer intelligible.

As David Trimboli explained, a sentence that contains {jatlh} or {ja'}
cannot be interrupted by reported speech in Klingon (unlike a relative
clause, which is inserted where grammar requires it to be in relation to
the noun it modifies). This grammatical rule isn't an impediment to
expression; in fact, it makes expression clearer. For that matter, English
does the same in practice: no one says 'She said, "Drop dead" to me.' It's
too awkward.

Some Klingon grammatical rules slow expression down a bit (e.g.,
comparatives). However, it seems to me that conforming to them leads to
ways to say what I mean. The ways are Klingon, of course, and not English.
Zweite Sprache, zweite Seele. {qa' cha'DIch 'oH Hol cha'DIch'e'} Anyone who
feels compelled to speak Klinglish may give up before appreciating this
fact. However, one can imagine what Klingons (or anyone else) would do with
received grammar that prevented them from saying what needed to be said.
(As some Klingons do when they want to use -laH and -lu' on the same verb,
and that isn't even a real impediment.)

~'eD

-- 
My modeling blog:          http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.com/
My other modeling blog:  http://bellerophon.blog.com/
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