[Tlhingan-hol] Too short

[lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]

There's still the issue of "A, B, C, and D" being the way you use commas and conjunctions in English for either nouns or verbs, while nouns in Klingon would be {A, B, C, D je} and verbs would be {A 'ej B 'ej C 'ej D}. Since written Klingon is really just phonetic notation and there are no punctuation guides, I suspect that a Klingon listening to what you've said would notate it as:

HoS. val. vaQ 'ej Duj Doj ra'mo' vIqIH vIneH.

And in such a case, it's odd that {vaQ} is conjoined with the sentence that follows it and not those that preceded it.

I don't think it's really okay to use the English form of punctuation and conjunction for either nouns or verbs in Klingon.

I could easily be wrong because canon seems to omit and avoid this kind of listing of verbs. Okrand even goes to lengths like {tInbogh Doch Doq} to describe a "big red thing" to avoid dealing with giving a noun two adjectives. There is an {X-bogh, Y-bogh je SuvwI'} example in one of the songs, of course, which surprised me with a noun conjunction linking verbs, but they are grammatically acting as noun phrases, so I get it.

The point is, Klingon is alien, and it's easy to take something we say in another language and cheat the grammar toward mapping the words in the original language instead of following all the rules in Klingon that are sometimes a bit odd. In English, a comma replaces repetitive conjunctions. In Klingon, it does not seem to do so.

On Jul 2, 2014, at 9:33 AM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:

> Am 02.07.2014 14:45, schrieb lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com:
>> Actually, the "SO" seems awkward in Klingon, to my ear.
> 
> Yes, to me too, actually. Was a bad example. About the {-mo'}, it's again a point of punctuation and also one of intonation. It also shifts the meaning of the phrase a little.
> 
> HoS, val, vaQ 'ej Duj Doj ra'mo' vIqIH vIneH.
> It's not because of all the things, only because of the commanding part.
> 
> HoSmo', valmo', vaQmo' 'ej Duj Doj ra'mo' vIqIH vIneH.
> Now IT IS because of all the things.
> 
> HoS, val, vaQ 'ej Duj Doj ra'. vIqIH vIneH.
> Here I talk about things and about the fact that I want to meet him.
> 
>> I can be wrong, and I hope I don't cause any big argument here. I'm just sharing what I honestly think is better formed Klingon grammar.
> 
> I appreciate your comments.
> 
> -- 
> Lieven L. Litaer
> aka Quvar valer 'utlh
> http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
> http://wiki.qepHom.de
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at kli.org
> http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol