[Tlhingan-hol] Religious terminology

[Will Martin]

qaQaHlaHmo’ jIbel ‘ach ghaytanHa’ <<-‘e’>> vIQIjta’.

The noun suffix {-‘e’} can be confusing and even controversial because it is used several different unrelated ways. It’s use in relative clauses to clarify which noun participates in both the relative and main clauses is one of the most straightforward, easy to understand uses. It’s also the most recent usage developed. I think it was invented on this mailing list and later approved by Okrand. I don’t think he came up with the idea.

The other clear-cut usage is with explicit subject nouns in “to be” sentences, like:

tlhIngan ghaH ‘avwI’’e’.

The guard is a Klingon.

We can guess about the reason that {-‘e’} is required for nouns in this position of this kind of sentence, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a rule. You have to follow it. Forever. Every time. Or, you’ve made a grammatical error. Don’t ask why. Just do it.

Meanwhile, the original purpose of {-‘e’} as a topic marker is the most controversial. The archives have the arguments to prove it.

My limited understanding of it is basically that you put it on a noun in the beginning of the sentence where other Type 5 suffixed nouns tend to go in order to mark a noun as, “Hey, listener! This is a really important noun that has something to do with the sentence that follows, but there’s no actual grammatical link between this noun and the structure of the sentence — like we know it’s not the subject or the object or any normal indirect object, or the location of anything, or any kind of time stamp for the sentence, but hey, don’t forget this noun because it’s really important.” Then you have a sentence.

So, if you have something like:

HoDpu'’e’ nIv Qanqor.

It basically means, “Krankor is superior (while you think about captains).” So, you might translate that is “Krankor is superior among captains.” Okrand explains this as a “topicalizer”, suggesting that you are presenting the topic of the sentence, but given some of the canon examples, there are those here who strongly believe that he picked the wrong word, even though he apparently picked the RIGHT word when he picked “perfective” for {-pu’}, even as his description of {-pu’} didn’t really convey what perfective apparently means.

It’s a messy world we live in. Inconsistent at times…

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be corrected on this, though...

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 4, 2015, at 1:00 PM, qunnoQ HoD <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Does it make more sense now?
> 
> HIja' ! reH Qatlhqu' {-‘e’}. DaH vIyaj jIQub.
> 
> chaq jIghItlhnIS :
> 
> <while you are using tlhIngan Hol,the things your words are concerned
> with are not limited>  jIlugh'a' ?
> 
> {'e'} DanapmoHbej lojmIt tI'wI'nuv. qavan !
> 
> qun HoD
> 
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 7:22 PM, Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com> wrote:
>> There’s a fairly advanced grammatical point that you likely are not
>> experienced enough to understand here. Allow me to help. It’s the last thing
>> in this brief exchange. See my attempt at help below that.
>> 
>> pItlh
>> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Dec 4, 2015, at 11:40 AM, qunnoQ HoD <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> tlhIngan Hol Dalo'taHvIS, Dochmey'e' bopbogh mu'meylIj vuSbe'lu'.
>> 
>> <while you are using tlhIngan Hol, someone is not limited,your
>> words,things which are concerned>
>> ...
>> 
>> 
>> The sentence you are struggling with has a “relative clause” in it. That’s
>> fairly advanced, and that clause has both a subject and an object, making it
>> a step more complex, and one of the nouns is marked with {-‘e’}, which is
>> not explained in TKD because Okrand had not developed that technique yet for
>> using {-‘e’} for that purpose at that stage of history of the language. So,
>> your ignorance is quite forgivable.
>> 
>> In Klingon, a verb with {-bogh} creates a relative clause. That means it’s
>> like a little sentence that tells you something about one of the nouns in
>> that little sentence that is also shared with the larger sentence. In
>> English, we use relative pronouns, instead.
>> 
>> So, when I say, “The guard, who is large, hit me,” the relative clause is
>> “who is large”. The larger sentence is “The guard hit me.” In English, the
>> relative pronoun “who” is standing in for “the guard”, which is part of the
>> larger sentence.
>> 
>> In Klingon, there are no relative pronouns. Instead, that one noun
>> participates in both the main clause and the relative clause:
>> 
>> muqIp tInbogh ‘avwI’.
>> 
>> So, {‘avwI’} is the subject of {tInbogh} and he is also the subject of
>> {muqIp}. You could think of it as {muqIp (tInbogh ‘avwI’)}.
>> 
>> That’s strange enough to require some getting used to, but it gets weirder
>> still if we say, “The guard, whom the officer had hit, hit me.”
>> 
>> {muqIp ‘avwI’ qIppu’bogh yaS}
>> 
>> For one thing, we can’t really tell if this means “The guard whom the
>> officer had hit hit me,” or if it means “The officer who had hit the guard
>> hit me.” Either interpretation is grammatically valid.
>> 
>> So, we mark the noun that participates in both the relative clause AND the
>> main clause with {-‘e’} because it is, in essence, the topic of the relative
>> clause — it’s the important noun that ties the two clauses together.
>> 
>> {muqIp ‘avwI’’e’ qIppu’bogh yaS}.
>> 
>> Now, we know the guard hit me, not the officer. Or if it had the other
>> meaning, we’d say:
>> 
>> {muqIp ‘avwI’ qIppu’bogh yaS’e’}.
>> 
>> So, going back to the example you stumbled over:
>> 
>> tlhIngan Hol Dalo’taHvIS Dochmey’e’ bopbogh mu’meylIj vuSbe’lu’.
>> 
>> You got a lot of this right, but keep in mind that {Dochmey bopbogh
>> mu’meylIj} is the original relative clause with the confusing {-‘e’}
>> stripped out of it, because for the meaning of that clause alone, you don’t
>> need {-‘e’}. The {-‘e’} is added so you can tell whether it is your words
>> that are not limited or the things which your words are concerned about that
>> are not limited.
>> 
>> Does it make more sense now?
>> 
>> qun HoD
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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