[324] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: wa'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon May 18 20:59:32 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: cigno@arbaro.esd.sgi.com (Kevin Walsh)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Mon, 18 May 92 16:35:51 -0700
> Now, perhaps my roomate is correct, or maybe he is totally wrong...
> I dunno, but if he's right then there is precedent for multi-negatives used
> to mean a negative, and not a positive.
> I'll be very interested in seeing this information either supported
> or shot down miserably by anyone who knows better...
For Russian, I cannot speak. But I do know that, in Spanish,
you have "multiple negative" sentences. You are supposed to
say things like "There is not nobody here." where in
English you would say "There is not anybody here." In Spanish,
there is no counting of negatives to see whether the sentence
is negative or positive. It is a convention that all Spanish
speakers know, so the system works and is not ambiguous. Perhaps
it seems illogical, but it is a little more straightforward, and
so less confusing than counting negations.
Because I am entering this discussion mid-stream and am a complete
novice, I do not yet know if Klingon counts negatives or follows
the pattern of "its negative" or "its positive." But, for aesthetic
reasons, I would not be surprized if Klingons preferred the more
straight forward style.
