tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 26 04:45:23 1995
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Re: KLBC: Comparatives
On Wed, 26 Apr 1995 00:30:41 -0400, "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]> said:
> On Tue, 25 Apr 1995, Marc Ruehlaender wrote:
>> I am as big as you.
>> machHa'ghachlIj rap machHa'ghachwIj
>> My-un-small-ness equals your-un-small-ness.
> Although is it isn't very pretty, it is grammatically correct.
Doesn't Okrand feel that it's a disgrace to let people use monstrosities
such as {machHa'ghach} just because he can't find the 60 seconds or so
that it would take to tell them whether `bigness' is {tIn} or {tInghach}?
I understand that he can't devote too much time to Klingon matters, but
this is not something that needs any time.
> Another way you could say it is: [...] {bItIn 'ej jIrap}.
... 'ej nuq vIrap? How about {jItInmo' qarap} or, better,
{jItInmo' qarur} `I'm like you because I'm big'?
>> I am two years older than you.
[...]
> bIboghpa' qaStaHvIS cha' DIS jIbogh.
Doesn't {qaStaHvIS cha' DIS jIbogh} mean that my birth lasted two years?
How about {bIboghDI' cha' ben ghot jIH} `when you were born, I was two'?
Of course, here the problem is a more general one: how to express the
extent of a comparison (`X is more A than Y by D'). Perhaps we should
find a description of a Terran language with Klingon-style comparatives
and see what it does.
>> You are less old than me.
>> QupHa'ghachlIj puS law' QupHa'ghachwIj puS puS
>> Your-un-young-ness is fewer than my-un-young-ness
> To me this doesn't perfectly solve the "less X than" question,
> I simply see this as "my oldness is more few than your oldness".
The ease with which one can say `less A' is a feature of English that
not all languages are required to share. My guess is that one can't
do much better than {jIH qan law' SoH qan puS} or {SoH Qup law' jIH
Qup puS}.
--'Iwvan