[85700] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: chay' "Get out of the way!" ra'lu'?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Wed Jun 3 15:54:02 2009
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "'tlhingan-hol@kli.org'" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 14:51:07 -0500
In-Reply-To: <4A26CBA0.7030906@trimboli.name>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Fiat Knox:
>> yIDev pagh yItlha' pagh HIwaQ 'e' yImev!
Voragh:
> Also, I'm not sure {pagh} "or else, either/or" works with three
> clauses. All canon examples have only two clauses, usually opposites
> (e.g. eat vs. drink, VERB vs. VERB{be'}, VERB vs. VERB{Ha'}). I would
> drop the first {pagh}:
>Fiat Knox wrote:
>> I also recall "pung ghap HoS," "Mercy or power," where "ghap" is
>> "exclusive OR." Mercy and power are mutually incompatible, in this
>> sense.
>>
>> In my sentence, the sentence-joining "exclusive or" preposition
>> "pagh" was required to convey that same sense of mutual exclusivity.
>> One is either leading, or following me; one cannot just stand there
>> and be in the speaker's way. Well, one could, if one were willing to
>> enjoy getting swiftly knocked down.
SuStel:
>The objection wasn't to your choice of words, it was to your placement
>of the conjunctions. Instead of
>
> <phrase> pagh <phrase> pagh <phrase>
>
>the suggestion was to use
>
> <phrase>, <phrase>, pagh <phrase>
>
>because we've seen things like this before.
>
>However, I would call that a stylistic suggestion, not anything we know
>definitively about the grammar.
Actually my objection wasn't to the placement of conjunctions in general, but the placement/use of {pagh} "or else, either/or" specifically, which (to me) implies a choice between only two options: either/or. Using it with three options seemed odd... rather like speakers who misuse "on the other hand". E.g.:
I could be right. On the other hand SuStel could be right.
And on the other hand Fiat Knox could also be right!
Thus implying three hands!
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons
