Basic Syntactic Organization

Word order:

Correct order of elements in a sentence. Languages may have a fixed word order (like Klingon’s --), partially fixed word order, free word order, but with one order being preferred (the preferred order is called “neutral word order”, as other constructions, while possible, usually imply emphasis or mark certain types of clauses) or fully free word order. Basic word order is usually expressed through the elements subject, verb and object, but additional elements may be subjected to rules as well.

Role, syntactic role:

The role or place a word or takes in a . can generally take the role of and , but, at least in English or Klingon, not of . Occasionally, the syntactic (sentence structure based) role and the (meaning-based) role can contrast (see and below for an example).

Verb-centric:

Community term to express that Klingon has a tendency to use verbs where English is more likely to use nouns, resulting in very different structures of translated sentences.

Sentence structure

Structural units

Phrase:

A phrase, also called an expression in some contexts, is a group of words acting as a single grammatical unit. In the English sentence “I have been reading the new book I got for my birthday”, “have been reading” acts as a single in role of the and is therefore a verb phrase (or verbal phrase); “the new book I got for my birthday” acts as a single in the role of the and is therefore a noun phrase (or nominal phrase). Note that a phrase is named after the part of speech it acts as (i. e. a noun phrase acts like a noun), not the part(s) of speech it consists of.

Clause:

A clause is a sentence or part of a sentence that consists of at least a . Clauses may be full sentences that can stand on their own, but do not have to be.

Independent clause:

A clause that can stand on its own and needs no additional parts to be considered a full sentence.

Dependant clause, subordinate clause:

A clause that cannot stand on its own and needs to be linked to an independent clause to form a full sentence. Klingon subordinate clauses are formed with .

Sentence:

A full or complete sentence consists of one or more independent clauses plus any number (including zero) of dependant clauses. , it is a string of words that expresses a complete thought; it has to consist of at least a .

Simple sentence:

A sentence that is made up of only one independent clause.

Compound sentence:

A sentence that is made up of several independent clauses, linked with punctuation or .

Complex sentence.

A sentence that is made up of at least one independent and at least one dependent clause.

Basic constituents

Subject:

The subject is the part of the clause that the . It commonly expresses the performer of the action expressed by the , but not necessarily. It is one of the three main components of a .

Null-subject language:

A language that allows a sentence to be complete without an explicitly stated subject. English is not a null-subject language, Klingon is.

Agent:

The agent could be called the semantic equivalent of the subject, i. e. the person, being or thing that actually performs the action expressed by the . In the sentence “The door opens”, “the door” is the subject (syntactic role), but not the agent (semantic role), as it is through the action of a person, animal, electric motor or the wind that the door opens, not by its own means. This sentence as is has no agent.

Object:

An object is one of several types of of the which expresses the person, being or thing that the action expressed by the verb is in some way performed on. Without specification, “the” object is usually the (or the object in languages). It is one of the three main components of a .

Patient:

The patient could be called the semantic equivalent of the object, i. e. the person, being or thing the action expressed by the is performed on. In the sentence “The door was opened by the man.”, “the door” is the subject and “the man” is a type of object, but as the man actually performs the action, he is the agent, while the door is the patient.

Direct object:

The direct object is the major of the which expresses the person, being or thing that the action expressed by the verb is performed on. It is called the “direct” object, as it generally stands directly next to the verb in the sentence, while other objects are separate from the verb by some other . Corresponds to the object in languages.

Indirect object:

The indirect object expresses the benefactor (in the grammatical sense - a person being screamed at is still a grammatical “benefactor”) of the action expressed by the . It is called the “indirect” object, as it is usually separated from the verb by the direct object (if present) and some kind of ; usually a in Indo-European languages, or the -vaD in Klingon. Corresponds to the object in languages.

Predicate:

Central part of a sentence and the minimal requirement for a full sentence. It is one of the three main components of a . As English predicates are necessarily (one or several - in the sentence “I would have been trying to do it”, the predicate is “would have been trying to do”), the term is less commonly used in descriptions of English grammar (which just uses “verb”). However, in other languages, parts of speech other than verbs can form predicates (underlined):

2

• predicate:

  (Reads: w̄arrior -̄ K̄lingon Воин - клингон.
  (Read: Voin - klingon)
  warrior Klingon
  The warrior is a Klingon.

• predicate:

  (Reads: K̄lingons k̄hrabr клингон храбр.
  (Read: Klingon khrabr)
  Klingon brave
  A/The Klingon is brave.

• predicate:

  (Reads: c̄rown-1sg.poss t̄o/for-3sg wrrt.j n.s
  crown-1sg.poss to/for-3sg
  My crown to/for her
  My crown shall be hers.

• predicate:

  (Reads: (̄a) Klingon h̄e (is) def-warrior *
  (Read: Halokhem hu klingon)
  (a) Klingon he def-warrior*
  The warrior, he (is) a Klingon
  The warrior is a Klingon.

  *Read right-to-left

• predicate:

  (Reads: ap* m̄(w)t īn s̄ight-1sg.poss t̄oday jw m(w)t m hr.j mjn
  ap* death in sight-1sg.poss today
  Death is in my sight today.

  *Adverbial particle

Klingon constructions such as tlhIngan jIH or tlhIngan ghaH loD’e’ could be described as having predicates, but note that Marc Okrand has not done so.

Adverbial:

The syntactic role adverbs play in a clause when they further describe the clause or the verb. However, of other can also function as adverbials. Some typical adverbials are statements of time (“this morning”, “in three years”), location (“at home”, “under the sea”), purpose (“to this end”), cause (“because of the weather”) etc. It is common in colloquial English to use adverbial and as synonyms. The word “adverbial” is used in TKD to describe what would usually be termed “adverbs”. It is therefore a topic of contention among Klingonists whether locations (raS bIngDaq), time stamps (vagh ben) and similar sentence-describing phrases could or should be termed “adverbials”.