[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: tey'be'

[David Holt]

________________________________________
From: mayql qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com>

>> QISta':
>> megh vut tey'be'wI' 'e' nID 'ach SIjwI' SamlaHbe'.

> this confuses me ; the way I understood the SAO until now, the
> sentence preceeding the {'e'} functioned as the object ; and the
> subject needed to come last (after the {'e'}). O 'e' VS. Doesn't the
> subject always need to be placed last ? The way I analyze the original
> sentence, it goes OS 'e' V. ?!?!?!

Let me see if I can put it in a way that helps.  I'm going to switch the verb to neH because "attempting" is always something you do yourself, but you can "want" someone else to do something. 

Both parts of the SAO are complete sentences and can have separate subjects:

megh vut tey'be'wI' 'e' neH tennuSwI'.

When the subjects are not already known they must both be stated.   Even when they ARE the same person it is also acceptable to explicitly state both subjects:

megh vut tey'be'wI' 'e' neH tey'be'wI'.

However, if the subject is already pretty clear, you can actually leave both off:

nuq neH tey'be'lI'?

megh vut 'e' neH.

In the same way, even when you need to state the subject, you don't need to mention it both times as one time can make the other time obvious:

megh vut 'e' neH tey'be'wI'.

Some possible ambiguity can be present in this sentence.  Who does your cousin want to cook lunch?  If we had just been talking about your uncle and you then said this sentence, I would assume you meant that your cousin wants your uncle to prepare lunch.  The fact we were talking about your uncle a moment ago makes me assume he is supposed to fill the missing subject slot in the first sentence.  But if this was clearly a change in subject, I might wonder for a moment and then assume you were saying that the cousin, herself, wanted to cook lunch.  We can make it more clear by putting the cousin in the first subject slot.

megh vut tey'be'wI' 'e' neH.

Now, unless we have already been talking about what someone in particular wants, I would assume that the cousin is also the person wanting it.  Thus I, too, would recommend that the best place for the explicitly stated subject is on the first sentence.

Is that a little clearer?

Jeremy