[2531] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: naDev jIchu'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jan 12 20:09:18 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: nsn@vis.mu.OZ.AU (Nick NICHOLAS)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 12:04:53 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9401121802.AA00181@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU>; from "Will Martin" a
t Jan 12, 94 1:01 pm
batlh choja', Will Martin quv:
= VERY interesting point. This brings us back to the use of punctuation.
=Of course, it doesn't exist in TKD, but suggestions that we shouldn't use it
=here are met with strong objections, despite the conservative bent of every
=OTHER aspect of grammar relating to TKD.
Don't forget that the TKD has no examples longer than an English sentence,
anyway. Following your lead, I actually use carriage returns rather than
full stops in my work, though this may change. In verse, obviously, one
verse goes on one line, so I have to use full stops.
= So if we ARE going to use it here, do we punctuate sentences linked by
={'e'} along the boundaries of the KLINGON sentences, or the ENGLISH sentences
=we translate them into? Since this is the ONLY place where punctuation is
=used when writing Klingon, we are of course free to do it however we choose,
=but we should at least come up with our own conventions in its use.
Maybe, maybe. I typically punctuate (either by full stop or carriage return)
such sentences as one sentence; when the link between them is not quite
conventional, though, as in Al's example, I'd punctuate them as two. But
they are two sentences, as Krankor has explained. (Not that I need invoke
his authority ;) ).
= The potential exists that Klingons do not delimit sentences at all, the
=way the Greeks did not use word-wrap on their stone tablets.
As I say repeatedly, I don't care what Klingons may do. We're not native
speakers. We don't have access to their subtle intonational cues and
conventions of phrasing. Anything we can do to make reading Klingon text
easier, we should --- which is why I use such a plethora of commas, though
this too has been reduced.
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breather {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
nsn@krang.vis.mu.oz.au -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias
