[732] in tlhIngan-Hol
A difficult sentence
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Apr 30 06:31:53 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: A.APPLEYARD@fs1.mt.umist.ac.uk
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: 30 Apr 93 10:21:47 GMT
"DAVID R. BARRON" <71603.2241@CompuServe.COM> on 29 Apr 93 13:10:39 EDT
mentioned difficulty translating this sentence into Klingon:-
"He's acting more like a diplomat than doing his duty of a thief."
My first try is: gharwi' DaghachDaj > niHwi' Qu'Daj lobghach
or gharwi' Da 'e' > niHwi' Qu'Daj lob 'e'
where `>` temporarily represents whatever comparative construction is used.
We have these problems:-
(1) If V is a verb, can `Vghach` have both subject and object, and where do
they go?
(2) `niHwi' Qu` = "thief('s) duty" can = "duty to steal" and also "duty to
catch thieves" etc. `niHniSghach Qu'` = "need_to_steal('s) duty" may seem to
fit, but it could also mean "duty to prevent people from needing to steal",
etc. What is needed here is a way to say that two nouns are <in apposition>,
i.e. are two descriptions of the same thing, rather than being owned and
owner, in the occasional but inevitable cases when context is not enough.
(3) If both subject and complement of "be" are nouns, e.g. "the science
officer was a Vulcan". One try is `vulqanngan QeDpin` (looking identical to
the "of" construction), plus a `-pu'` (to express the past tense) running
about with no Klingon verb to attach itself to. Since a pronoun, say `ghaH` =
"he", can be take verb suffixes when used to mean "he is", can nouns also take
verb suffixes also when they are subjects of "be"? If this is done with `pu'`,
there is ambiguity with its role as a noun plural, but this does not happen
with `bogh`: is `vulqanngan QeDpinbogh` allowable for "the science officer who
is a Vulcan" as distinct from "the Vulcan's science officer"?
This relates to (2): if `bogh` on a noun is allowable thus, `niH(wi')ghach
Qu'Dajbogh` = "his duty, which is being a thief". Therefore is this valid?:-
gharwi' Da 'e' law', niH(wi')ghach Qu'Dajbogh lob 'e' puS.
Or would "the science officer was a Vulcan" = `vulqanngan ghaH QeDpin`, and
"the science officer who was a Vulcan" = `vulqanngan ghaHbogh QeDpin`? If so,
we end up with:-
gharwi' Da 'e' law', niH(wi')ghach 'oHbogh Qu'Daj lob 'e' puS.
