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Re: Klingon translation

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Trimboli)
Sat Jun 27 16:50:55 2009

Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:42:48 -0400
From: David Trimboli <david@trimboli.name>
In-reply-to: <548210.70869.qm@web82608.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org

Terrence Donnelly wrote:

>> --- On Fri, 6/26/09, ghunchu'wI' <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
>>> {'Iv HoS law' latlh HoS puS"} "Who is stronger than
>> the
>>> other one?"
>>> 
>> On further consideration, I don't think this really expresses "Who
>>  is the stronger?" I realize that the law'/puS construction is 
>> fossilized and not really open to interpretation as a typical 
>> Klingon sentence, but I think of it as two declarative statements:
>>  X A law' Y A puS == 'The A of X is much, the A of Y is little'.

That'll get you into a lot of trouble. You can't extend the grammar of
law'/puS that way, but you'll be very tempted to do so, and to analyze
it in those terms.

>> So, "The strength of who? is much, the strength of another is 
>> little'.  I just don't think you can use 'Iv with law'/puS at all.

I don't see why not. {'Iv} is just performing its usual role: replacing
a noun or noun phrase and turning the sentence into a question.

>> On the other hand, it does seem that the law'/puS verbs can take 
>> some verb suffixes, so I propose again {SuS bIr HoS law''a' qo' Hov
>>  HoS puS'a' pagh qo' Hov HoS law''a' SuS bIr HoS puS'a'}

Woah! How does it seem that we can do that?

>> 'Is the cold wind stronger than the homestar, or is the homestar 
>> stronger than the cold wind?'.

Actually, Pom Pom won the Strongest Man in the World Contest.

>> Or, for a completely different recasting, how about {SuS bIr qo' 
>> Hov je qellu'taHvIS, HoSqu' 'Iv.}.

Is he only very strong while one is considering them? (Don't forget the 
{lu-} on the verb.)

>> As an "indirect question", this would become {SuS bIr qo' Hov je
>> qellu'taHvIS, Hosqu'bogh Dol yIngu'}.

How is that an indirect question? It's pretty obviously a command.

-- 
SuStel

tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush





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