[2741] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: po puv bortaS! (translation)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Jan 24 14:10:12 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 94 13:41:08 EST
On Jan 24, 10:45am, Amy West wrote:
> Subject: Re: po puv bortaS! (translation)
>
> Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
>
> > batlh choja', Amy West quv:
>
> >=Hichmey tuj, Som ChuStaH,...
> >SaS seems wrong;
>
> I wanted to say "high horizon". but I see now that {SaS} is a verb.
> How would you say "horizon" (n.), then?
Well, for one thing, space has no horizon. If your intent is to speak of
the infinite distance, I would choose {chuq'a'} or {chuq'a'Daq Dochvam}, or
even {chuq'a'Daq Hoch}. I'm rather attracted to that last suggestion.
chuq'a'Daq Hoch DIneH
That pretty much describes the way *I* feel at the Con of MY ship,
anyway. Maximum warp. {jIbwIjDaq vIHtaHbogh Hovmey rur bIQtIq vIH}
Hey, give me some poetic license, okay?
...
> What I wanted was a noun synonymous with 'plunder' (the act of
> stealing). Don't know why I used {nge'}! {nIH} seems
> better. So first of all, is it OK to put {je} at the end of
> three nouns? And 2nd - how do you turn a root verb into a
> noun? {nIHtaHghach} or {nIHghach}?
1st - Given that Okrand never gave us an example of more than two
conjoined nouns, it has been considered acceptable until further notice to
either say {wa' cha' wej je} or {wa' cha' je wej je}. The latter is the more
conservative, less ambiguous method, though somewhat verbose. The choice is
similar to the English "One, two and three" vs. "One and two and three".
2nd - This is the topic of current controversy. Most people agree that
the wording in TKD primarily justifies {-ghach} only when there is some sort
of suffix after the root verb. {-taHghach} is ugly and probably would have
been directly referenced by Okrand (like {-taHvIS}), if that's what he really
wanted us to do. Mostly, it looks like he was keeping his options open for
the next movie or maybe he just wasn't thinking this thing through. Whatever
the case, {nIHtaHghach} is probably the better choice at the current time, if
you insist on nominalizing a verb instead of reworking the sentence to use
the verb as a verb or find a noun that really is a noun, which is usually not
all that difficult if you stop thinking the sentence through in English first
and instead get back to the root thought before it became an English
sentence.
> >The best way to translate "in the morning", which, as you rightly
> >surmised, is not -Daq, an explicitly spatial postposition, is
> >"qaSDI' po".
>
> And Dave said the same thing, so now I'm convinced.
Again, I'm not sure this has been fully thought out. This {qaSDI'} thing
exists nowhere in canon. It was created on this list to fill what was
perceived as a vacuum, yet in looking at this recently, I feel that it is NOT
a vacuum at all. Time references are made all the time using time-centric
nouns adverbially at the beginning of the sentence, like {wa'Hu' jI'oj}. The
word "Yesterday" is a time-related noun, just like {po}, so why can't {po} be
used just like {wa'Hu'}?
> -- Amy West -----------------------------------------------------
-- charghwI'
