tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 02 08:04:26 1995
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Re: "be proud of"
>Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 21:48:35 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]>
>Thu, 1 Jun 1995, ghItlh ghunchu'wI':
>> But what DOES "be proud of" really mean in English, anyway? How else could
>> you say it and mean the exact same thing? To "be proud because of it" says
>> that "it" is the cause of your pride, and doesn't indicate anything special
>> about what "it" is doing. When I say "I am proud because of you" to my son
>> I am being selfish and denying him the benefit of my pride. If I say "I am
>> proud of you" I am giving him praise. I think the {'oHvaD Hem} phrase does
>> justice to the intended meaning of "be proud of it."
>Here, the use "of" appears to be acting as a function word to denote the
>application of the adjective "proud" to the following noun. Other
>examples of this construction would be "I'm fond of candy" or "I'm sick
>of my job".
In other words, if you view "being proud" as a verb, it indicates the
object of the verb, I think.
>The way I would like to say this in Klingon is to use Nick's suggestion
>of using {'e'} to introduce the topic of the sentence, and say something
>like: {jIHem [cleavage]wIj'e'} (With respect to my cleavage, I am proud;
>I'm proud of my cleavage) or {jIpuQ Qu'wIj'e'} (As for my job, I'm fed
>up; I'm sick of my job).
I don't buy this. Okrand says little about -'e', but really seems to imply
that it's solely a marker of nouns that are subjects or objects, not som,e
mystical non-subject/non-object "topic." If you say that "As for my job,
I'm sick of it" makes sense, then you're implying that "To be fed up" takes
an object, and you're just moving the object around to someplace else.
Nor do I think that "Hem" and "puQ" should take objects, since they make
a certain amount of sense intransitively, and... well, just instinctively
those don't sound like objects (yes, I know that's no proof, but hey,
instincts are all we have here). I *really* think -mo' makes eminent sense
here. I'm fed up. Why am I fed up? Oh, it's my job. So because of my
job I'm fed up. Qu'wIjmo' jIpuQ. I'm proud. Why am I proud? It's my
cleavage. [cleavage]wIjmo' jIHem. Works just dandy.
~mark