[449] in tlhIngan-Hol
The Grammarian Speaks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Jan 11 17:37:07 1993
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Captain Krankor <krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot.com>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 15:16:45 -0500
Hey gang. Nice to see the list being so frisky.
The point of letting the Grammarian take first shot at corrections
is to avoid the situation of filling up the group with multiple corrections
of the same errors. It's not a *big* deal and I'm not gonna make a production
out of it, but in general I think it makes more sense to leave the correcting,
at least initially, to me. In particular, if people are doing discussion *in*
tlhIngan Hol, I'd rather not see the focus get away from that and into a lot
of correction stuff. But in any case, I'm VERY happy that folx are paying
attention enough and doing the translations enough to pick out all the
errors {{:-)
The other reason, by the way, for having just one person do corrections is so
that nobody gets back 12 correcting posts and feels intimidated from posting
again. While I hope everyone will make a good effort to check their grammar
as well as they can before posting, EVERYONE is going to make errors here, and
the point is to learn and practice, so don't be intimidated, jump right in!
Finally, let me re-state my proclivities regarding corrections: I don't feel
it's necessary to correct every last oversight or typo. The kind of correction
s
which are most important are A) things the writer clearly seems to have failed
to understand or take to heart, i.e. chronic problems, B) things so convoluted
that the general readership would have serious difficulty figuring out what
the person was trying to say, and C) things which are "interesting"
grammatic issues. Thus, Allan's style of correcting is closer to my own than
mark's; for instance, I'm not convinced it's necessary to point out each-and-ev
ery
instance of blown word order. One or two is sufficient to make the point.
The reason I spell all this out is chiefly for the benefit of all you *readers*
:
If you get stuck trying to understand something, send mail (or a post; use your
judgement) about it-- it *might* have been an error that didn't seem worth
explicitly correcting.
I'm just gonna throw in a couple *quick* comments on some of the corrections,
so as to more quickly get to joining in the tlhIngan Hol discussion proper.
1) tera'Daq is certainly "on Terra", but I'm not certain that that's what
she meant. "on a Terran planet" is different from "on Terra"; she could, for
instance, have meant a Rigel colony or something. However, Allan's point
is quite valid about tera'ngan not being an adjective. In fact, the N-N
construction does *not* save "yuQ tera'nganDaq", because that would mean
"at the planet's terran". It should be: tera'ngan yuQDaq. See p. 30.
2) The comments about jI- instead of vI- are wholly accurate. This is a very
easy mistake to make, one which I am prone to myself. Keep an eye out for
this one! {{:-)
3) There's no question that it's Dalqu' tachmey, not tachmey Dalqu'.
4) Kudos to mark for the thing on "vaj". I've hit that problem before,
but I hadn't even thought of -pa' as the solution. majQa'!
5) I completely disagree about ... 'e' vIQuchqu'. Klingon does NOT have a
strict transative/intransitive distinction the way that English does; the
fact that you'd have to use a preposition in English is irrelevant. The
grammar follows all the rules and the meaning is clear. As far as 'e'mo'
goes, that is something I've always wanted to be able to do but sadly was
forced to conclude that there is not enough evidence to support it. The
dictionary treats the use of 'e' very much as a by-rote formula and it's not
at all clear to me that we can generalize much from it. Here's another thing
I'd love to be able to do with 'e' that just doesn't have enough support:
choparbe' muQuchmoH 'e'
It is a topic worthy of discussion, but, with what we have now, I think we
can't do it.
Finally,
6) It in fact should be: jI"smile"bejQo'. -Qo' always goes last, except for
type 9. See p. 47.
--Krankor
