[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC : Sentences as objects

[Will Martin]

Keep in mind that for an English speaker, changing the meaning of a prefix like {vI-} when applied with the suffix {-lu’} is complex, for a Klingon speaker, it’s not complicated at all. It’s just the way the language works.

When I talk about complexity, I’m not talking about the amount of work an English speaker has to go through to speak Klingon. I’m talking about the tendency to try to pile a lot of meaning into one sentence. Klingon speakers are much more likely to break up an English sentence with a complex set of relationships among its parts and express the same ideas with a series of separate, smaller, simpler sentences.

That really is the only kind of complexity I’m suggesting that one attempt to avoid. Individual Klingon sentences that contain too many words can become strikingly difficult to parse, and quite often breaking it down into smaller, simpler sentences results in much better communication, which is what we are after here. 

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Nov 18, 2015, at 11:23 AM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 9:59 AM, Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com <mailto:lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Another problem is that you are using the prefix shortcut with {‘e’} as the direct object and “me” as the indirect object, and I’ve never seen that done before, and I’m not sure I like it. It’s just another layer of complexity in a language that values directness and simplicity.
> 
> 
> Wouldn't it be more complex if the prefix trick had a list of exceptions? Using the prefix trick with {'e'} as the third-person direct object and "me" as the indirect object seems like a straightforward application of the idea. (For me, the real complexity here is in combining the prefix trick with the different rules for prefixes with {-lu'}, bending {vI-} all the way from "I verb" to "someone verbs it for me".)
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at kli.org
> http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol/attachments/20151118/35edc263/attachment.html>