[87613] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: qoSwIj
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Doty)
Wed Jan 6 14:54:46 2010
In-Reply-To: <f60fe001001060944y70bf6b44l6f182585795e8aca@mail.gmail.com>
From: Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 11:51:14 -0800
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Well, in these non-verbal copular constructions in Klingon, I think
that the pronoun (whether it be ʼitʼ or not) is always referring to
the same thing as the ʼobjectʼ/predicate noun... In something like
<qoSwIj 'oH>
The ʼitʼ of <ʼoH> is referring to birthday--ʼIt is my birthday.ʼ
In <DaHjaj qoSwIj ʼoH>, it seems a better translation would be ʼIt is
my birthday todayʼ, and strikes me as fine in both Klingon and
English. Maybe Iʼm missing the objection here, but I donʼt see how
one can say that there isnʼt an ʼitʼ in a sentence like <DaHjaj qoSwIj
ʼoH>, since the ʼitʼ is clearly ʼmy birthdayʼ
Chris
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 09:44, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com> wrote:
> But in each case, regardless of the tangibility or concreteness of the
> antecedent noun, there is one: something you can identify as the noun
> that 'it' is standing for. In a sentence like "Today, it is my
> birthday", there is not really a noun that fits where the "it" is.
> "Today, the day is my birthday"? "Today, the date is my birthday"?
>
> Instead, the "it" is just a place holder, because "Today, my birthday
> is." doesn't work as an English sentence (unless it's Yoda-speak for
> "My birthday is today." - but there, "today" is a noun instead of an
> adverb).
>
> -marqoS
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> Mark J. Reed:
>>>> I would tend to question the translation {DaHjaj qoSwIj 'oH}. "Today
>>>> it is my birthday" is fine in English, but it's one of those weird
>>>> idiomatic uses of "it" that lacks an antecedent (like "It's hot out",
>>>> "It's seven o'clock"). Do we have evidence that Klingon does
>>>> something similar?
>>
>> {'oH} almost always refers to an actual, tangible object but I did find four exceptions:
>>
>> an abstract idea (revenge, honor):
>>
>> bortaS nIvqu' 'oH bortaS'e'
>> Revenge is the best revenge. (TKW)
>>
>> SajlIj 'oHbe' quvwIj'e'
>> My honor is not your play-thing.
>> (lit. "My honor is not your pet.") (STConst p.259)
>>
>> an intangible place (space):
>>
>> veH Qav 'oH logh'e'
>> space--the final frontier (S99)
>>
>> and a geometric figure (i.e. the shape, not the thing it's drawn on):
>>
>> meyrI'Daq 'oHtaH gho'e'
>> The circle is in the square. (qep'a' 2005)
>>
>> While the last two might be considered virtual/imaginary objects or places, the first two can't be (however important the concepts are to Klingons).
>>
>>
>> --
>> Voragh
>> Canon Master of the Klingons
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>
>
>
>
>
