[103] in tlhIngan-Hol
-taH, and 'the bathroom is a room'
dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Feb 16 15:23:17 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: krankor@IMA.ISC.COM (Captain Krankor)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 92 04:34:06 -0500
This is in response to Kevin Iga's recent posting about -taH, and pa'
(the bathroom is a room). I don't have the ability to include quotes,
so you'll all have to remember what he wrote {{:-)
I like the essential notion presented, involving -taH being used for
something that could move, but not for a fixed-location thing. However,
I would stress that this is a *guideline*, not a *rule*. There is nothing
to indicate that saying "nuqDaq ghaH HoD'e'" is any more or less correct
than "nuqDaq ghaHtaH HoD'e'"; both are correct, it's simply a matter of
what shade of meaning you want to convey. In fact, in the right circumstances,
I might even want to say "nuqDaq ghaHlI' HoD'e'". RULE OF THUMB: Don't
read too much into those example sentences at the end. Sometimes we
can infer some things from them, but they are often clunky, or flat-out
wrong. Some examples of what's wrong with them:
CLUNKY EXAMPLE:
English: There's nothing happening here.
Given Klingon: naDev qaS wanI' ramqu'
Better Klingon: naDev qaS pagh
or maybe: naDev qaStaH pagh
Reason: This line was used in Strek III, and they thought it would be a
good joke if the Klingon Captain said something really long in
Klingonese, but the subtitle was really short. So they came up
with this (the joke doesn't really work, in my opinion). I got
this anecdote from Okrand himself. So obviously, elegance or
straight-forwardness of translation was not the prime consideration.
WRONG EXAMPLE:
English: Your nose is shiny.
Given Klingon: boch ghIchraj
Correct Klingon: boch ghIchlIj
Explanation: The -raj suffix is for you *plural*. The english clearly doesn't
mean "You guy's nose is shiny" (many people having one nose?) or
even "Your noses are shiny". Clearly this calls for the second
person *singular* possessive suffix, -lIj.
So remember that those examples are just that, examples. Not definitive
statements about the best, or even the correct way to say things.
As for the problem of: pa' ghaH HoD'e'
In this case, the sentence is clearly ambiguous. So what? As Okrand is
fond of pointing out, English (and any other natural language) also
has ambiguous sentences. Context determines the intended meaning.
From the Grammarian's Desk, this has been
Captain Krankor
