tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 27 19:31:18 1995
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Re: law'-puS in reverse?
On Thu, 27 Apr 1995, Alan Anderson wrote:
> jatlh yoDtargh:
> >It seems we have a way to say "X is more something than Y", but we don't
> >have a way to say "X is less something than Y".
>
> Nor do we need one. We're interpreting the phrase which translates as
> "your many skill, my few skill" to mean "you are more skilled than I am"
> but it could just as easily be interpreted "I am less skilled than you are."
> Must we infer a difference in meaning between these interpretations? I
> don't see one. What reason would you give for needing different meanings?
> Do you want to indicate that A is better because "A is less Q than B"?
> Say "B is Q-er than A," then say "A is better."
The problem is not the implied difference between the two parties made by
the comparison, but which person is the subject of the sentence. The
party which is "more A" is always the subject. In your example, TKD
indicates "your skill" is the subject of the sentence. But what if the
topic of the conversation is "my skill". If "my skill" is the lesser
skill in the comparison, we don't have a way to specifically refer to it.
This came up when I was trying to figure out how to translate
"subgenius" for naQ'avwI'. I simply wanted to say, "these people are
less intelligent than a genius". The problem is that I don't want to
talk about geniuses, I want to refer to the people who are less
intelligent, i.e. the "subgeniuses". The topic of my sentence is "these
people" and not "geniuses".
My solution was simply to put {-'e'} on the topic. As far as I can tell
it fits perfectly within the grammar rules and is perfectly understandable.
(On the other hand, I am still rather fuzzy on the difference
between the linguistic concepts of "focus" and "topic". Perhaps some
linguist would be kind enough to explain it to me in layman's terms.)
> -- ghunchu'wI
yoDtargh