Fundamentals

Agreement:

When a word changes form depending on another word to which it relates. Common in languages like French, where articles and adjectives have to agree with the noun (i. e. le grand homme (male) vs. la grande femme (female)). In Klingon, a verb has to agree with its and through the . This type of agreement is called “polypersonal agreement”.

Argument:

A word or expression that helps complement the meaning of another, typically a .

Dependant:

A word that depends on another to determine its grammatically correct usage in the sentence. In English, the is usually the ’s dependant, as its form depends on the subject (cf. “I do” and “He does”).

Complement:

A type of element necessary to complete the meaning of an expression. Typically used for the and of . In English, a subject is always needed for any verb, so it is a complement.

Government, rection:

Terms used to describe the relation between a word and its dependants. In the traditional usage of the concept, a word is said to “govern” its dependant when it requires a particular grammatical form of it. For example, Latin govern the of their by requiring said object(s) to be in a particular case for the to be grammatically correct.

Modifier:

An optional element that modifies the meaning of another word or expression. Typical modifiers are articles (“the house”), adjectives (“red rover”), adverbs (“run quickly”), but even numbers (“three mice”) or clauses (“the book that I read”) can be modifiers.

Parts of speech

Noun: a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing or living creature

Noun class:

Categories of nouns that share one or several features, typically in meaning or formation, but also sometimes arbitrary. Nouns in the same class usually share some grammatical properties, such following the same patterns, using particular or being replaced by different . Klingon has three noun classes that differ in and possibly in suffix and pronoun used to replace them, namely “beings capable of language”, “body parts” and “general”.

Gender, grammatical gender:

A particular type of noun class common to Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages, in which the noun classes mostly overlap with the sex of persons and animals. The sex is in this context also referred to as “natural gender” to contrast with the “grammatical gender” for the few cases in which these do not match. For example, the Scottish Gaelic word “boireannach”, meaning “woman” is grammatically male, because it is formed with the ending “-ach” (which works a bit like Klingon -wI’ if it could only be appended to ), which as a rule only results in grammatically male nouns. For an opposite example, collective nouns (nouns that designate groups of people, animals etc.) in Middle Egyptian are often grammatically female because they use the feminine ending -t, even if the group is made up exclusively of men, such as “Xnyt”, “sailors, oarsmen”. Some linguists might use “gender” as an alternative word for noun class. In this case, the Klingon classes of language-user vs. non-language-user vs. body part may be called a “gender”.

Case:

Form of nouns and noun modifiers that expresses grammatical function of the noun or noun in a sentence. The word “case” is typically used for languages and its application to Klingon is questionable. However, since the names of cases may also be used to speak of other forms or constructions that fulfil the same role as a particular case, the following cases may potentially be considered applicable to Klingon:

Nominative:

The case a is in; unmarked in Klingon except by position in the OVS-

Genitive:

Case expressing possession (“Marc’s book”) or attributive (“a book of paper”) relation of two nouns; expressed in English with “-’s” and in Klingon by the noun-noun construction

Dative:

Typical case, marking the beneficiary or recipient of an action; marked in Klingon by the -vaD

Accusative:

Typical case, marking the target of an action; unmarked in Klingon except by position in the OVS-

Locative:

Case expressing location; usually expressed in Klingon with the -Daq

Ablative:

Case expressing a motion from a place; usually expressed in Klingon with the -vo (or not at all)

Elative:

Case expressing a motion out of a place; usually expressed in Klingon with the -vo (or not at all)

Allative:

Case expressing motion towards a place; usually expressed in Klingon with the -Daq (or not at all)

Illative:

Case expressing motion into a place; usually expressed in Klingon with the -Daq (or not at all)

Number, grammatical number:

A form of the noun that shows how many of the noun there are.

Singular:

Exactly one instance of the noun

Plural:

More than one instance of the noun

Other options:

The above are the only two grammatical numbers of both English and Klingon, but other languages may distinguish dual (exactly two, though duals may evolve to include higher numbers but be referred to as dual for historic reasons), trial (exactly three), paucal (a few), collective (“all of” or a group of, cf. English “people”)...

Collective noun:

Noun that refers to a group of people, beings or things.

Mass noun, uncountable noun:

Any quantity of that noun is treated as an undifferentiated unit; if a plural exists, it usually refers to a slightly more specialised meaning of the word or different types of it (e. g. en “woods” is either a synonym of “forest” or refers to different types of wood). Can also not usually be used with numbers (“one wood” will at most make sense in a game of “Settlers of Catan”)

Singulare tantum, plurale tantum:

The noun exists only in the singular/plural and is treated as such grammatically (e. g. en: “trousers, scissors”).

Collective singular:

Noun that refers to a collection of things or beings, but is grammatically singular, like Klingon inherently plural nouns.

Locative noun, location noun:

Category of Klingon nouns describing an area by its spatial relation to another noun, i.e. “area above”, “area next to” etc.

Verb: a word that expresses an action, occurrence or state of being

Tense:

Where in time the action described by the verb happens. It is very important to remember that Klingon doesn’t have tenses, instead using aspects.

Aspect:

How the action described by the verb extends over time. The typical distinction is of completed vs. not-completed action, but aspects may also denote repeated, habitual or unitary actions. It should be noted that the aspect expresses a point of view, meaning that the use of the aspect is often less governed by clear rules (the way tense is) and more by the speaker’s point of view. The same sentence may be correct in multiple aspects, but emphasise different points of the action.

Perfective:

An aspect that denotes an action as a single, completed occurrence. It is marked in Klingon with the -pu and -ta.

Perfective vs. perfect:

In English grammar, the term “perfect” is used to refer to a verb form combining tense and aspect, which expresses an action that was completed before the present. An action that was completed before any time of reference (which may be in the future - see the English future perfect) is technically in the perfect aspect. However, due to the risk of confusion with the aspect-tense combination, the term “perfective” is mostly used as including the perfect aspect (as is done above).

Imperfective:

The contrasting aspect to the perfective, denoting an action as ongoing, continuous or habitual or not making any claim about the action’s status with regards to completeness. It is generally unmarked in Klingon, though the phrasing in TKD makes it possible that perfective aspect marking is not required in Klingon, meaning that an unmarked verb is potentially neutral with respect to its aspect.

Progressive:

Expresses an ongoing action. Can be seen as a subtype of the imperfective, but contrary to the imperfective, it always makes a statement on the action’s completeness.

Valency:

Property expressing how many arguments a verb/predicate can take:

• avalent or impersonal: No argument, e. g. SIStaH - it need not be specified who or what is raining.

• monovalent or intransitive: One argument, the , e. g. Qong be’¹.

• bivalent or transitive: Two arguments, subject and , e. g. paq¹ laD be². Note that the term “bivalent” has been erroneously used for ditransitive verbs in some Klingon grammar descriptions.

• trivalent or ditransitive: Three arguments, subject, direct object and , e. g. loDvaD¹ paq² nob be³.

Transitivity:

Whether or not a verb can take a direct object. Some verbs may have both a transitive and an intransitive usage, which may differ in meaning. Transitivity of Klingon verbs may not match the transitivity of their English equivalents (as is the case among natural languages as well). As the transitivity of Klingon verbs is also not always known, the usefulness of the concept is contentious.

Voice, grammatical voice:

The voice describes the relationship of the action expressed by the verb with its participants. In English, when the is the or the doer of the verb, the verb is in the active voice. If the subject is the or target of the action, the verb is in the passive voice. Some languages add a middle voice, in which the subject is both agent and patient of the action. This corresponds to constructions in other languages, including Klingon. Klingon does not mark for voice, but the passive is usually circumscribed by the .

Infinitive:

Usually, the most basic form of a verb without any (though this is not true for all languages, f. ex. in Hebrew, some verbs cannot even form an infinitive). With respect to Klingon, the term could denote a verb without any , but it is rarely used that way. The usage of the English to-infinitive (i. e. “I want to do sth”) uses either a or the sentence-as-object construction in Klingon rather than an infinitive construction.

Mood:

A feature of verbs used to signal modality, that is the attitude of the speaker towards what they are saying, f. ex. whether it’s a statement of fact, a wish, a command etc. Klingon could be analysed as having two moods, plus an additional one expressed by an analytic construction and four more that are expressed by . It should be noted that Marc Okrand has not described any of these in terms of grammatical mood (except for the imperative) and most of these terms are not in common usage among Klingonists.

Indicative:

The “default” mood, used for factual statements. Usually unmarked, including in Klingon.

Imperative:

Mood used to give orders and/or requests. Uses a specific set of prefixes in Klingon.

Conditional:

A statement that is dependent on a condition; the “then”-part of an “if-then”-statement. However, that entire construction is also referred to as a “conditional statement/construction”. Has also been applied to the Klingon -chugh, though that would be a different usage of the term.

Subjunctive/Conjunctive:

Words for the mood in which the “if”-part of an “if-then”-statement is in. Could be used to describe the Klingon suffix -chugh, but is rarely used so.

Irrealis/Hypothetical:

Technically, all moods that do not describe factual statements (i. e. all moods except the indicative) are irrealis moods. However, the term “irrealis” when applied to conditions is often used to describe conditions that are hypothetical or counterfactual (e. g. “if I were a rich man” or “if the moon were made of cheese”). The Klingon net jalchugh-construction could be described as irrealis or hypothetical.

Optative:

Expresses hopes and wishes, could be used to describe the Klingon suffix -jaj.

Necessitative/obligative:

Rare mood that expresses necessities and/or obligations, could be used to describe the Klingon suffix -nIS.

Dubitative:

A mood that expresses the speaker’s doubt about their statement. Klingon has dubitative for both nouns (-Hey) and verbs (-law’).

Modal verb:

Verbs that are used to describe modality. English modal verbs include f. ex. “must”, “may”, “can” and “shall” (non-exhaustive list). Klingon has no modal verbs per se, instead mostly expressing modality through suffixes.

Verb of motion:

In Klingon, a category of verbs whose goal can be used as their direct object. First described in TKD as verbs whose “meaning includes locative notion”. These verbs can distinguish “motion at a place” from “motion towards a place”. “Verbs of motion” are a category in many languages, which is why the term is used by some Klingonists, but what distinguishes them can be very different from language to language. Note that not all verbs describing a movement are verbs of motion.

Verb of speech:

In Klingon, the verbs that can be used as the dialogue tag on direct speech (i. e. “Here I am,” he said.) and require a no-object prefix in this usage, namely jatlh, ja, jang and HIt. Note that not all verbs describing speech are verbs of speech. This term has so far not been used by Marc Okrand.

Stative verb, verb of quality, adjective-verb:

Type of necessarily verb that is the closest equivalent to in Klingon. Can be used and in the law-puS-construction. Usually equivalent to English “to be” + adjective, but not necessarily. Note that there is disagreement on whether the term “stative verb” can/should be applied to Klingon.

Action verb, non-stative verb:

The opposite of the above, any verb that cannot be used attributively or in the law-puS-construction.

Leftovers: Every word that is not one of the above

[sec:Pronoun] Word that can replace a or . Klingon additionally has two pronouns that can replace preceding full in the position, namely ’e’ and net.

Person, grammatical person:

The grammatical description of participants in an event. The first person is or includes the speaker, the second person is or includes the addressee and the third person includes everyone else. The order is hierarchical, i. e. any group that includes the speaker(s) is necessarily in the grammatical first person, independent of who else is included and a third person can only be used if neither the speaker(s) nor the addressee(s) are included in the group being spoken about. Grammatical persons usually influence the use of pronouns and affect forms. In Klingon, pronouns, verbal and are influenced by grammatical person.

Antecedent:

With respect to pronouns, the antecedent is the noun that is being replaced by a pronoun in subsequent mentions. There is also another use of the term, see .

Pro-drop:

Short for pronoun-drop, said of languages in which certain classes of pronouns can be omitted. Pro-drop languages are usually either highly inflected so the pronoun is inferable from the forms of other words (this is f. ex. the case in Spanish, where the subject is inferable from the form of the ) or completely lack any inflection based on grammatical person, so the dropped pronouns must be inferred from context (this is f. ex. the case in Japanese). Languages may be only partially pro-drop when the pronouns can only be dropped in certain circumstances (f. ex. in Modern Hebrew where the past and future tenses are marked for grammatical person, so the pronoun can be dropped, but the present tense is not, meaning that the pronoun has to be included there). Klingon is a “full” or “consistent” pro-drop language, meaning that (and in Klingon’s case also ) pronouns are never required.

[sec:Adverb] A word that modifies a or sentence. Note that in colloquial English the terms “adverb” and “” are often used synonymously. Technically, “adverb” denotes the part of speech, while “adverbial” denotes the or function the adverb plays in the sentence. This is important as and non-adverb parts of speech can function as adverbials (then also called “adverbial phrases” or “adverbial clauses”), but that does not make them adverbs. However, since TKD almost exclusively refers to this part of speech as adverbials, the applicability of this distinction to the Klingon language is a topic of contention among Klingonists.

Basic adverb:

An adverb that is not derived from another word, such as “almost”, “here” or “often”. Really the only type of adverb in Klingon.

Derived adverb:

An adverb that derives from a different word, very often an adjective. In English, these are almost all recognisable through their ending in “-ly”; Klingon cannot derive adverbs from adjectives.

[sec:Conjunction] A word that links words or sentences. Klingon only has seven conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunction:

A conjunction that links words or of equal syntactic importance. These are the only type of conjunction in Klingon, which has four types of them: “and”, “and/or”, “exclusive or” and “but”.

Subordinating conjunction:

A conjunction that links to their main clauses. Klingon does not have subordinating conjunctions, their role is instead filled by .

Noun conjunction:

A conjunction that links two or more nouns. Term typical for Klingon grammar, to distinguish from sentence conjunctions.

Sentence conjunction:

A conjunction that links two or more sentences. Term typical for Klingon grammar, to distinguish from noun conjunctions. Most languages do not need such a distinction as they use the same conjunctions for both.

[sec:Number] Words for numbers.

Cardinal number:

The base numerals, the “normal” numbers one, two, three etc.

Ordinal number:

Numerals used to express the sequence or order of things, i. e. first, second, third etc. Marked in Klingon with the suffix -DIch.

Multiplicative number:

Not overly common term for numbers used to express the frequency of an occurrence, i. e. once, twice, thrice etc. Marked in Klingon with the suffix -logh.

Number-forming element, number-forming suffix:

Term for the used to form the number words of higher powers of ten, i. e. -maH, -vatlh, -SaD/SanID etc. One usage of SaD law’ in the paq’batlh suggests that they are not exclusively suffixes, but can in some circumstances stand alone.

[sec:Question] A word that marks a question. Klingon interrogative words serve to mark open questions (also called wh-questions in English), the yes/no-question (or closed question) is marked with the interrogative -’a’.

[sec:Interjection] A word or expression that can stand as an utterance on its own. The general “rules” of do not apply to interjections. Interjections include exclamations (such as “wow”), greetings, response words (such as “okay”, but also “yes” and “no”), hesitation markers (“uhm”), filler words (“well”, “like”), sound words (“ouch” or “achoo”) and many forms of profanity.

Parts of speech that don’t exist in Klingon

Preposition:

Not a word type in Klingon, but very common in English. They usually denote spatial or temporal relations or bind to (“at home”, “in three days”, “go to jail”). Usually expressed in Klingon through or , if at all.

Article:

A that marks the identifiability of a noun or . The English articles “the” and “a/an” mark a noun for grammatical definiteness, but other languages have articles that additionally convey information about grammatical , (particularly ) or . Klingon does not have articles.

Adjective:

Used to describe nouns. Klingon does not have adjectives, instead using a group of necessarily verbs called “stative verbs”, “verbs of quality” or “adjective-verbs”. In addition to fulfilling the role of , these verbs can be used in the law-puS-construction and can stand behind a noun to describe it (i.e. “red table” – raS Doq).

Attributive:

An attributive adjective is used directly with a noun to further describe it, i.e. “a red table”. Stative verbs used this way in Klingon are often termed “adjectives” or “verbs used adjectivally”, but the linguistic term is “attributive”.

Predicative:

An adjective that is used as part of a ’s , requires the verb “to be” in English, i.e. “The table is red”.

Comparative:

Form of an adjective that denotes that A has more of the quality expressed by the adjective than B. Expressed in Klingon with the law-puS-construction.

Superlative:

Form of an adjective that denotes that A has the most of the quality expressed by the adjective. Expressed in Klingon with the law-puS-construction.

Additional terms possibly used to describe Klingon affixes

Noun suffixes

Augmentative:

Form that augments the noun, usually forming a bigger, more important or more intense version of the original noun. Klingon examples:

• bIQ’a: sea, ocean – water of a larger size

• ’uQ’a: banquet – a more important dinner

• toy’wI’a: slave – more “intense” type of servitude

Diminutive:

Form that diminishes the noun, usually forming a smaller, less important or incomplete version of the original noun. Klingon examples:

• chabHom: cookie – small cake

• mangHom: cadet – not yet a soldier

• DujHom: shuttle – more limited than a ship

Possessive:

, word or form that express the possession of one by another. Klingon uses a set of possessive appended to the noun, -wI/wIj, -lI’/lIj etc.

Demonstrative:

Words and used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish them from other entities. Demonstratives are a form of . The most common examples are “this” and “that”, expressed in Klingon with the -vam and -vetlh.

Deixis:

The use of words or phrases to refer to a time, place, thing or person relative to some reference point. The best known deictic words are likely demonstratives like “this” and “that” (-vam and -vetlh in Klingon), but and certain and time words are also part of deixis. The use of pronouns is always in reference to the speaker (the person who is referred to by “I” depends on who’s speaking). Location and time words are part of deixis when they describe a location or time with respect to a reference, i. e. “across the street” is clearly a deictic , while “on the street” is not or less deictic. Deixis is commonly divided into “proximal” (near to the reference, “this”, -vam) and “distal” (away from the reference, that, -vetlh), but some languages add additional levels, f. ex. in Japanese, “proximal” is near the speaker, “medial” near the listener and “distal” far away from both; Malagasy even has seven levels.

Causal:

, word or form that express the cause/reason of an action. Marked in Klingon on both and with the -mo.

Benefactive:

, word or form that expresses the benefactor of an action, often corresponding to English “for”. There is some overlap with the , both in the definition and in the Klingon language. Marked in Klingon with the -vaD.

Topic:

Also called the theme, this is, simply said, the grammatical element that a is about. It usually contrasts with the focus or comment, which is what the sentence has to say about the topic. There is some debate over the exact meaning of the Klingon “topic” marker, as it rather marks the focus in some of its canon usages, which Marc Okrand himself has stated.

Verb suffixes

Reflexive, reflexivity:

, word or form expressing that a subject does an action to itself, e. g. “I wash myself”. In some languages, such as Klingon, this precludes the use of another . Marked in Klingon with the reflexive -’egh.

Reciprocal, reciprocity:

, word or form expressing that two or more subjects do an action to each other, e. g. “we see one another”. Marked in Klingon with the reciprocal -chuq. Reflexive and reciprocal share the condition that the subject and object of the sentence are the same.

Iterative:

, word or form expressing that an action is repeated. One aspect of the Klingon -qa.

Inceptive:

, word or form expressing that an action begins. Has been used to refer to the Klingon -choH, though this has been described in TKD as a change of state, meaning that the term “inceptive” may be debatable.

Causative:

Verb form expressing that one noun causes either itself or another noun to do something, suffix –moH in Klingon. Proto-Germanic had a causative and words like English “blacken” (make black), “raise” (cause to rise), “lie” (cause to lay) or “fell” (cause to fall) still show remnants of the way it was once formed. Modern English, unless it has a separate verb with the causative meaning, usually has to express the causative with “cause”, “make” or similar constructions. Klingon has the causative -moH.

Indefinite subject:

When the of a is not known, not identified or not defined. The closest English equivalent is the pronoun “one”, though the Klingon indefinite subject can also often be translated with the passive . Other types of words can also be indefinite, f. ex. the pronouns vay (someone, something) or pagh (nothing, nobody) would also be called indefinite.

Honorific:

Term to refer to language features that express the speaker’s respect for the addressee or even a third person. The Klingon can be called a honorific suffix.

Substantivisation, substantiviser, nominalisation, nominaliser:

Substantivisation/Nominalisation is the process of forming a from another type of speech, most commonly a (f. ex. react \(\rightarrow\) reaction) or (f. ex. red \(\rightarrow\) redness). General nominalisations in Klingon can be formed with the substantiviser/nominaliser -ghach, as long as there is at least on other suffix in-between.

Agent noun:

A that denotes the of an action, the person or thing who does an action denoted by a . Commonly formed in English with the “-er” (i. e. “read \(\rightarrow\) reader” or “print \(\rightarrow\) printer”). Formed in Klingon with the suffix -wI’.

Final:

Grammatical form that expresses a purpose or result. It is expressed in Klingon with the verb -meH.

Instrumental vs. Final:

The instrumental is a grammatical case whose main function is to express the tool or means by which an action is performed. It’s sometimes applied to the Klingon suffix -meH, even though a construction with -meH is only used to express the action that results from the tool usage. Compare:
Slovak instrumental:
Ja píšem perom (I write with a pen - perom “with a pen” is in the instrumental case, marking the tool)
Klingon final:
jIghItlhmeH, ghItlhwI’ vIlo’ (In order to write, I use a pen - meH marks the result of the tool usage)

Temporal:

, words or forms that are related to time. Klingon -DI’, -vIS and -pa’ are all temporal .

Relativisation, relative clause:

A relative clause describes a noun in more detail, turning a into a . It is formed in Klingon with the verb suffix -bogh. The noun that the relative clause describes is called its “head”, “head noun” (this is the term TKD uses) or “antecedent”.