[Tlhingan-hol] vulqa'nganpu'

Thu Dec 31 09:18:37 PST 2015

It’s unfortunate that Okrand chose to include “however” as a definition for {‘ach}, since in English, that’s an adverb, but in Klingon, {‘ach} is a conjunction.

The Sentence As Object (SAO) construction, according to what we are told has one sentence referring back to a separate, grammatically distinct OTHER sentence. The pronoun {‘e’} doesn’t refer back to an earlier part of the same sentence it is part of. It refers back to an earlier sentence. A separate, earlier sentence.

The word “but” is more complicated in English than we often take it to be. In terms of actual logical meaning, it is the exact equivalent of “and”. When I say, “I hit you, but I didn’t mean to,” in terms of statements, that’s exactly the same thing as saying, “I hit you and I didn’t mean to.” However, there is a subjective difference.

You want that subjective difference, but you don’t really want the conjunction. Unfortunately, {‘ach} is a conjunction. In English, “but” is a conjunction (I hit you, but I didn’t mean to), an adjective (I like all ice cream flavors but cherry), an adverb (He is but a shadow of his former self) or a noun (No ifs, ands, or butts about it). In Klingon, it’s just a conjunction.

If there were an earlier sentence that {‘e’} referred to, then maybe your sentence would be valid, like:

tlhIngan SoH. maHotlaHmo’ manenchoHlaH, ‘ach tugh ‘e’ vItlhoj.

We can begin to mature because we can feel, but soon I realized that you are a Klingon.

To get the meaning that you seem to have intended, you might try something like:

maHotlaHmo’ manenchoHlaH. tugh ‘e’ vItlhoj. vItlhojchoHDI’ mumer ngoDvam. not ngoDvam vIqelpu’.

We tend to be lazy about punctuation of SAO and we don’t put the period before the {‘e’}. We do this because the English translation does not consist of two separate sentences, but in Klingon, it actually does. Since Okrand doesn’t use punctuation, we see canon examples without the sentences separated, but they really should be. That’s clear in the text describing SAO.

So, once we started punctuating Klingon by our own convention without Okrand’s consultation, we just never habitually put the period separating the two distinct sentences. We should. We often don’t. We probably omit it more often than we remember it. I suggest this is a bad thing because it leads to sentences like yours, since hey, it’s all just one sentence, right?

Well, no. It isn’t. It’s one sentence referring back to an earlier sentence. It’s two sentences. {‘ach} is a conjunction, making it one sentence, and that forces {‘e’} to refer back to something before the first clause of the sentence containing {‘ach}.

Unless, of course, there’s more to SAO than Okrand explains in TKD… And if he explained more somewhere else, I never was made aware of it.

But there are lots of people here with access to more canon than I’ve seen, so maybe someone else can come up with an example or an explanation to make it possible for {‘e’} to refer back to an earlier part of the same sentence into which it is contained. It’s a frequent sport here; an opportunity for me to spread joy by giving someone a chance to correct me. I doubt there’s anyone else here who’s been corrected more times than I have. It’s my role, and I embrace it, wholly.

But you do have to come up with some kind of actual example, rather than an opinion. Don’t make me quote TKD. I prefer to just sit on a couple decades of experience with the language and trust that I haven’t misremembered something this essential to Klingon grammar.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably

> On Dec 31, 2015, at 10:25 AM, mayql qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I still don't understand..
> 
> is this sentence right or wrong ?
> 
> maHotlaHmo' manenchoHlaH, 'ach tugh 'e' vItlhoj.
> however soon I realized, that because we are able to feel, we are able
> to grow/mature.
> 
> and if it is wrong, what is its wrong part ? the placement of the {'ach} maybe ?
> 
> cpt qunnoQ
> 
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 5:01 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
>> On 12/31/2015 8:48 AM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm more than a little certain that TKD explains that while we may
>>> translate Sentence As Object into one sentence in English, in Klingon,
>>> the two sentences are separate. A conjunction makes the two sentences
>>> one. They are no longer separate.
>> 
>> 
>> It explains that two separate and complete sentences may be used to form a
>> "complex sentence," either as a "compound sentence" (with a conjunction) or
>> as a "sentence-as-object" (with {'e'} or {net}), but it doesn't say anything
>> about treating the complex sentence as an indivisible whole afterward.
>> 
>> 
>>   bISoptaH pagh bItlhutlhtaH
>>   You are either eating or else you are drinking
>> 
>>   {bISoptaH} is a sentence.
>>   {bItlhutlhtaH} is a sentence.
>>   {bISoptaH pagh bItlhutlhtaH} is a sentence.
>> 
>> 
>>   qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSov
>>   the know we kill prisoners
>> 
>>   {qama'pu' DIHoH} is a sentence.
>>   {'e' luSov} is a sentence.
>>   {qama'pu' DIHoH 'e' luSov} is a sentence.
>> 
>> 
>> The individual pieces don't cease to be sentences even when the complex
>> whole is also considered a sentence.
>> 
>> --
>> SuStel
>> http://trimboli.name
>> 
>> 
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