[Tlhingan-hol] Qun qa'

Tue Nov 17 09:33:12 PST 2015

> Maybe I’m just having some kind of stuck mental function. I can’t come

> up with a reason to put a noun suffix on a pronoun. I can think of several

> verb suffixes that work, but no noun suffixes. Yes, pronouns can be used

> in Klingon as verbs or nouns, but appropriate affixes are limited, and all

> the ones I can come up with are verb suffixes.

All of the Type-5 noun suffixes make sense to me, and many have been seen in canon.

=== 'e'===

TKD includes the sentence {lujpu' jIH'e'} as "It is *I* who have failed."
I believe it's generally accepted that this should really be {jIlujpu' jIH'e'}, however.

When somebody wrongfully asks me {nuqneH?}, I like to reply (at least in my mind) with {pagh vIneH. nuq DaneH SoH'e'?}

I could also see it used in comparatives:

{tlhIH'e' Hul'Iq HoS law' Hoch HoS puS.}

= "Hul'q is the strongest of y'all."

ghaH'e' is used in paq'batlh:

{veng ‘elDI’ ghaH / pawpa’ ghaH’e’ / paw lutDaj ‘e’ Sov qeylIS}
= "Upon entering the city, / Kahless knows his tale / Has preceded him."
paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 10, Stanza 1

=== vaD ===

This one is quite common. Canonical examples include:

{roD 'oHvaD juHqo' ponglu' neH.}

= "[It] is usually referred to as simply 'The Homeworld.'" (SkyBox 27)

{SoHvaD 'uQ wej vIqem.}

= "I'll bring you dinner number three." (CK)

 {ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH.}

= [It reminds him of his heritage.] (SkyBox 20)

=== mo' ===

No known examples that I'm aware of, but surely there might be conversations where it's useful to say "...because of you." or some such (even though I think Klingons would often be more specific than that).

{bIHmo' jIjeSlaHbe'.}

= "Because of those, I can't participate."
(said by a peanut allergic in reference to the abundance of Snickers bars at a convention)

=== Daq ===
A useful example would be {ghaHvaD nISwI' tIH yIbaH!} ("Shoot a disruptor beam at him/her!")

{nuqDaq} is arguably a pronoun + Daq.

A canonical use:

{ghIq QavwI'chaj  DuQchu' / qeylIS betleH / chaHDaq SiStaHvIS negh 'Iw}

= "The Kahless's bat'leth / Pierced the last of them, / Showered with the soldiers' blood."

paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 13, Stanza 5

Also used in canon to describe proximity:

 {SoHDaq Sum raS.}

= "The table is near you."
Source: http://klingonska.org/canon/1998-12-holqed-07-4.txt

=== vo' ===

{wa'Hu' chalqach yorDaq wIlDaq jItoSta'. 'oHvo' juHwIj vIleghlaH.}

= "I climbed to the spike at the top of the tower yesterday. I could see my house from there.

{maHvo' nIHlu'ta'! 'eywI'maaaaaa'!}

= "They stoles from us! Our preciousssss!"

Also used in canon:

{chaq SoHvo' vay' vIje' vIneH.}

= "Maybe I'd like to buy something from you." (PK)
[Admittedly, this line is spoken by a Human.]

{qeylIS ‘uchHa’ ‘ej ghaHvo’ yIt}

= "He releases Kahless and walks away."

paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 17, Stanza 1

{molor qIpmeH / wa' chap lo' qeylIS / 'ej ghaHvo' yIt.}

= "Kahless slaps Molor / With the back of his hand, / And walks away."

paq'batlh, paq'raD, Canto 22, Stanza 1

________________________________
From: Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 17:45
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Qun qa'

Sorry.

Having seen this one go by a couple of times without comment, I have to just touch on one thing:

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv

On Nov 17, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Rohan Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com<mailto:qeslagh at hotmail.com>> wrote:
...
jangpu' De'vID, jatlh:
> cha' mu'tlheghmey tu'lu''a'?

jang je naHQun, jatlh:
> wa' mu'tlhegh 'oH'e'. chevmey Da {tIQHa'}.

{chevmey}? {chuvmey} DaHechpu''a'? jImIS jIH.

I see no justification for putting {-‘e’} on {‘oH} here. If there were a subject of {‘oH}, as in {DujwIj ‘oH Dujvetlh’e’}, then the subject noun would get {-‘e’}, not the {‘oH}. Most of the time a noun with {-‘e’} is placed among the words before the main clause, declaring the topic of the sentence, as in {HoD’e’ QaQchu’ Qanqor.} “Considering captains, Krankor is perfectly good,” or “Krankor is perfectly good as a captain." We have canon for these uses.

On this mailing list, it’s also been used in relative clauses to make clear which noun is the noun that participates in both the relative clause and the main clause, as in {QIpqu’ Qanqor tIchbogh nuv’e’.} “The person who insults Krankor is very stupid.” Without the {-‘e’}, you could mistakenly think that meant “Krankor, who is insulted by the person, is stupid,” which would be an unwise statement to make in the company of Krankor’s friends.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen a canon example of Okrand using {-‘e’} in this way. I’d sorely miss it if it were ever declared a bad use of {-‘e’}, but I don’t think Okrand himself has ever made a position clear on this.

Meanwhile, I see no justification for {wa’ mu’tlhegh ‘oH’e’.} There’s no reason to put the {-‘e’} there, and since it is a noun suffix used on a pronoun that is functioning as a verb, it appears to break the grammar of the sentence as a whole. We know that we can put verb suffixes on pronouns when they are functioning as the verb “to be”, as in {naDev jIHtaH.} “I am here.”

I’m trying to think of any condition in which a pronoun takes a noun suffix… even when it’s not being used as a verb… This is one of those things I’ve never thought about before. It’s somewhat refreshing. I don’t run into grammatical points in Klingon that I’ve never thought about before very often.

Maybe I’m just having some kind of stuck mental function. I can’t come up with a reason to put a noun suffix on a pronoun. I can think of several verb suffixes that work, but no noun suffixes. Yes, pronouns can be used in Klingon as verbs or nouns, but appropriate affixes are limited, and all the ones I can come up with are verb suffixes.

Maybe if I were screaming at you, making sure that you understood that you, and you alone were the problem, I might say {bIqay’ SoH’e’ neH jay’!} but in that case, I’m obviously not using {SoH} as a verb.

Mischievously, I guess if I wanted to compliment you on your helmet, I could jokingly say, {‘oHtaH SoH’e’!} “It’s YOU.” But there’s so much grammatically and idiomatically wrong with that. It would only be a joke.

Sorry to go on so long. Drop the {-‘e’} on {‘oH}. It really jumped out at me as wrong.

QeS 'utlh
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