[Tlhingan-hol] tera' Hovtay'Daq PLUTO HurDaq bIHtaH'a' latlh yuQmey?

[lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com]

The interrogative verb suffix {-‘a’} is always answered by “yes” or “no”. You can’t use it for some other kind of question, as several have pointed out.

chay’ Dochmeyvam perlu’? yuQna’ bIH’a'? yuQHom ‘bIH’a’?

Maybe inflection works, as implied by putting a question mark at the end of a vague statement. “It’s either a true planet or a minor planetoid.” 

Likely, we could have gotten the meaning across if we’d simply asked, {yuQna’ bIH’a’?}

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

> On Jan 20, 2015, at 3:16 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 1/20/2015 3:05 PM, Bellerophon, modeler wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 12:53 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name
>> <mailto:sustel at trimboli.name>> wrote:
>> 
>> So putting the quantity noun first in a noun phrase began as sloppy
>> usage?
> 
> I didn't say so.
> 
>>> 'ach yuQna' pagh yuQHom bIH?
>> 
>> bIghel'a' pagh bIja''a'? I was recently trying to translate either/or
>> questions into Klingon and found they did not mean what I intended. I
>> wasn't sure whether the result was either/or or yes/no? vulqangan
>> romuluSngan ghap chaH'a'? Clearer is vulqangan chaH'a' pagh romuluSngan...
> 
> There is no good way to do this, so I just made it a question with a question mark. Imagine my tone rising to ask a question. (I don't think we have any clear evidence that a rising tone at the end indicates a question in Klingon.)
> 
> I didn't say {yuQna' bIH'a' pagh yuQHom bIH'a'?} because that seems patently wrong to me, and just an Englished thing to say. ("Is it yes or no or is it yes or no?")
> 
> You could get around the problem with {yuQna' pagh yuQHom; bIH tIngu'!}. But I was asking a rhetorical question (don't tell me Klingons never ask rhetorical questions), not ordering you to do something. Heck, I wasn't even talking to "you."
> 
> Maybe {yuQna' bIH pagh yuQHom bIH; jISovbe'}.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://www.trimboli.name/
> 
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