[Tlhingan-hol] {-meH}ed nouns

[qov at kli.org]

lut! lut qon chu'wI'ma'. qep'a'Daq qalupmeH qaquchnISchugh vIruch.

> qen, tlhIngan loghDaq buq'IrwIj vIchIjtaHvIS, narghpu' wanI' Huj ; 

I would not recommend -pu' here, because you are talking about the
appearance, not the completion of the appearance. The whole sentence takes
place at the time of the appearance, right? Perfective is for when something
is complete at the time of the sentence, not for when it happens at the time
of the sentence.

> tlhopDaq buq'IrwIj 'et, So'Ha'pu' Duj'e' Sovbe'lubogh.

Put all the location nouns behind the -Daq.  
Three reasons:
1. You can't have nouns sitting around in front of an OVS unless they are
timestamps or hidden behind a type-5
2. Only the last noun in a noun-noun construction can have a type-5 suffix
3. buq'IrwIj 'et = the bow of my cube (lugh);  {tlhop buq'IrwIj 'et} = "the
bow of my cube of the area in front" (huh?); {buq'IrwIj 'et tlhop} = area in
front of the bow of my ship

The location you want is thus buq'IjwIj 'et tlhopDaq : "the ship's fore's
area in front". 
 
> vIleghDI', jIja'egh *purpose clause* 'oH buvDaj'e'.

The object of ja' is the person addressed, so I supposed it's okay to put a
reflexive suffix on it. If you do, you have to spell it correctly, though:
jIja''egh.

> Do' So'Ha' Qov voragh je Dujmey 'ej De' 'ut mulI'.
> luckily Qov and voragh ships decloacked and transmitted me the necessary
> data.

I would have said Qov Duj, voragh Duj je. 
Two reasons: 
1. It's a little awkward having a conjunction in between one noun and
another in a noun-noun construction. I'm not sure it's wrong.
2. It makes it sound like voragh and I jointly operate a group of ships,
rather than we each pilot our own.

I bet half the people who read this disagree with one or the other of these
two points, so if you like what you've written, there's no reason to change
it. 

> (is the prefix trick here correct ?)

HIja'.

> 1. Can I use the {-meH}ed noun construct, as if it were *normal*
> subject/object depending on the occassion ? for instance am I able to say
> {muHIv ngongmeH Duj} <the experimental ship attacks me> and {ngongmeH
> Duj vIHIv} <I attack the experimental ship> ? I believe that this would be
> correct, but I'm asking in order to make certain.

bIlugh. The requirement for the -meH clause to be before the OVS applies
when it's a purpose CLAUSE. When it's one word modifying another word, it
just needs to go before that word.

> 2. Studying voragh's examples I noticed that almost always the {-meH}ed
> verb-noun construction is actually (zero prefix){-meH}ed verb-noun
> construction. But then I saw this : {jIpaSqu'mo' narghpu'
> qaSuchmeH 'eb} <I was too late to visit you.>. Processing this in my mind,
I
> read it as <because I was very late-it escaped-in order I visit YOU-the
> opportunity>. So, this makes me come to the conclusion, that depending on
> the occasion, I CAN have a verb prefix before the {-meH}ed verb (other
than
> the zero one). right ? For instance if I wanted to say <weapon in order to
kill
> me> I could write {muHoHmeH nuH} right ? I will not ask about verb
suffixes
> on the {-meH}ed verb, because I saw the examples {Qapchu'meH 'aqroS
> chuq} and {chenmoHlu'meH Daq}. So, I'm assuming that aside the usual
> restrictions in regard to the placing of suffixes on verbs, there are no
> new/special restrictions, as far as the verb of the {-meH}ed verb-noun
> construction is concerned. Please correct me if this is a wrong
assumption.

That is as it would appear.  It's rarer for there to be a prefix, because
often the purpose of an object is not specifically first or second person,
it's just in general a Say'moHmeH taS. As always, you don't want to let your
affixes get too ridiculous and overbalance the sentence, but say what you
need to.
 
> 3. This is (or may be) a rather controversial point. I have noticed, that
always
> we are using the definitions found in tkd, kgt and everywhere else in the
> most "strict" way. For instance we will use the {rup} to mean <to fine,
tax>
> and not to mean <to place excessive burden in a non-financial context>. We
> will not use {rup} to say that "the high velocity was taxing on the
engines". So
> far, so good. But suddenly this comes along :
> 
> QongmeH Duj
> sleeper ship
> 
> So, now I will ask.. Does "sleeper ship" describe a vessel, where I will
go with
> my pillow and teddy bear, in order to sleep ? So, why do we use the verb
> {Qong} for this purpose ? The answer will come, that it is (I believe) a
canon
> example. So, logic now would dictate, that whenever a verb is {-meH}ed,
its
> definition could be expanded beyond the *traditional/strict*
interpretation
> we are accustomed to using.
> I'm quite certain that this is not the case, however I think that this is
an
> interesting thing to discuss..

I know Voragh answered this and you became happy, but imagine that a QongmeH
Duj were a place where you went with your teddy bear and pillow in order to
sleep. Why would you feel that it was stretching the meaning?  Or you were
guessing that "sleeper ship" was a metaphor of some sort.

The controversy surrounding stretching meanings comes from two sources. 
One is people trying to make a Klingon word cover all the meanings of the
English word that is used to translate it in TKD.  For example, the English
word "table" is used to describe a supported flat surface, and also an
arrangement of information(that might have once been done on a table, but is
now usually done on a computer screen). We even use table to describe the
level of ground water in a place. If someone tried to use raS in order to
mean wa'chaw or 'aqroS they would not be understood, unless the person who
was trying to understand them was also thinking in English. It's quite
common for people who have never studied a foreign language before to try
and use the words in the definitions rather than their meanings to define
Klingon words.  A ridiculous example--but don't think I haven't seen things
similar to this--would be someone saying {yIchen} and expecting it to be
understood as {yu'muD yItlhap}. That's the reason for my rule #5:  Choose
Klingon words according to intrinsic meaning, not the words in the
definition. 

The second reason we're conservative about this is that we don't always know
what are appropriate metaphors for Klingons. How do they think?  English
speakers say "it's right as rain."  Klingons say {lugh; Sor rur}.  We know
they have metaphors. Pots can have elbows and their combs do have teeth, but
to preserve the alien-ness of the language, we don't like to presume which
metaphors are appropriate for them. 

I don't have a problem with {meQtaHbogh ngemDaq Sor choptaH qul Ho'Du'} =
"the teeth of the fire gnaw at the trees in the burning forest"
but I would hesitate to say that  {SuvwI'pu'ma' 'Iw bIQ'a'Daq chen vengvam}
= "this city was founded on an ocean of our warriors' blood"

Not just because of the literal shakiness of founding something on an ocean,
but because water is not a power metaphor in Klingon.

On the other hand, spinning what you just learned into a little Klingon
fable is fully awesome. Qochchugh vay' juHqo'DajDaq may'DujwI' vIchIj 'ej
bebDaj ghID peng.

- Qov

P.S. Every time I use the word beb I have this unshakeable feeling I have
known it since preschool.  I have a memory of colouring in a little labelled
picture of a house, labelled la maison, with all the parts: le jardin, les
fenêtres, la porte, and on top beb.  I could swear the roof was beb, has
always been beb.  beb is a more rooflike word than roof or le toit for me.