[1722] in tlhIngan-Hol
wot vItu'laHbe'law'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Oct 18 10:24:30 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
From: DSTRADER@delphi.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 06:36:26 -0400 (EDT)
X-Vms-To: IN%"tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com"
Comparative/Superlative constructions really bother me, as they do a lot
of people. Maybe the reason is because THERE IS NO VERB!!! That somehow
seems to illegitimatize it. That might just be my Terran point of view
trying again to dictate my opinions about an _alien_ language.
In old Klingon, maybe law' and puS were subtly different in semantics:
maybe they had meant "be greater than" and "be less than" in that
kind of construction.
Ok, for an example, how about this:
HeSwI' ngIm law' DenIbQatlh ngIm puS
It is easy to see what this really means according to TKD, but actually
a direct translation would uproot something to the effect of:
"criminal disgusting many Denebian slime devil disgusting few," or
rather, "many (a) disgusting criminal few disgusting Denebian slime devil."
The lack of a verb seems to prevent the tacking on of any verb suffixes,
like -ba'.
What if you wanted to say, "The criminal is *obviously* more disgusting
than a Denebian slime devil." Or how could you say "The criminal was
more disgusting..." or how could you even turn it into a question, if
you wanted to? Well, maybe you could add qar'a', but there is no such
easy way out like that for other verb suffixes.
Maybe it's a colloquialism that eventually defeated the previously
proper construction. Quite frankly, I dunno.
SaqaD: Who here can figure out how to say, "The commander who is bolder
than the officer destroyed the enemy space station."?
! @ # $ % ^ & * (Guido1) * & ^ % $ # @ !
