tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 05 14:44:18 1995

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Re: Relative sentences

Sorry. I can't help myself.

According to A.Appleyard:
> 
> I wrote:-
> > ... If I convert it into matter known to TKD, e.g. "I asked for the little
> > phaser which the captain and his crew do not use when guarding their ship",
> > any goes at translating it into Klingon as one sentence?
> 
> Here is my own attempt:-
>   (1) as 2 sentences: {pu'vaD mach vItlhob : pu' mach lulo'be' HoD beqpu'Daj
> je Dujchaj lu'avDI'.} or similar.

Thank you for once again reminding me about the {lu-} prefix,
which I seem doomed to perpetually forget.

The first {-vaD} should be moved to follow the adjectival verb
instead of the noun to make this grammatically correct, but even
then it sounds rather odd. It sounds like I am asking on behalf
of the little phaser, or for the benefit of the little phaser.
I think that "ask for" is one of those things that is a bit
idiomatic and won't necessarily port directly to Klingon. In
fact, you are asking in order that you can use the phaser, so
the meaning nudges one towards a different grammatical
construction altogether.

I also think that in the second sentence, {-taHvIS} works a lot
better than {-DI'}. I know that the English says "when" and
that maps to {-DI'} in TKD, but think about the MEANING of
these suffixes. {-DI'} means "when, as soon as", which has to
do with an event; a threshold; a point in time. {-taHvIS} means
"while", which has more to do with time associating one process
as simultaneous with another.

"when guarding their ship" is simultaneous with the use of the
phaser, not as an event, but as a parallel process. Any time
they are in the state of guarding the ship, they are also in
the state of not using the phaser. The phrase could have as
easily been expressed as "while guarding their ship". The hint
is the "-ing". In English, "when Xing" can almost always be
replaced by "while Xing". Meanwhile, "when I X" is more often
different from "while I X".

"When feeding my targ, I am careful." = "While feeding my targ,
I am careful." Meanwhile, "When I feed my targ, I lock the door
behind me," makes sense. "While I feed my targ, I lock the door
behind me," makes less sense. See? "While feeding my targ, I
lock the door behind me," similarly makes little sense. This
is, as I see it, the difference between {-DI'} and {-taHvIS}.

I think that {-DI'} is much better suited for examples like:
qaleghDI' qaHoH. "When I see you, I will kill you." This has
less to do with the ongoing simultenaity of the two processes
than with a threshold. When one event happens, the other will
happen. I may very well continue to see you after I have
completed killing you. One event is the trigger of the second
event. Beyond the trigger point, simultenaity is insignificant.

charghwI'
-- 

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