tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 26 20:50:56 1996
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Re: KLBC: Some simple sentences
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: KLBC: Some simple sentences
- Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 22:53:34 -0500
Eskil Heyn Olsen writes:
>In DS9, "Way of the Warrior", Worf says "I no longer need it", could this
>be translated as {'oH vIghajnISbe'taH} with some type 6 suffixes perhaps.
That's one valid translation, though I might omit the {'oH}.
>Restaurant :
>
>1. qa'vIn SaH'a' ? Is there coffee ?
Since the object comes before the verb in a Klingon sentence, I read
this as "Does he care about coffee?" Turn it around: {SaH'a' qa'vIn}
means "Is coffee present?"
>2. HIja' 'a chIch 'oH bIr Yes, but it is cold.
{bIr} all by itself means "it is cold" -- one doesn't use a pronoun
as the verb "to be" when one is using a stative verb like {bIr}. If
you're trying to say "it" explicitly, "it" is the subject, and comes
after the verb. So "it is cold on purpose" is simply {chIch bIr},
or {chIch bIr 'oH} if you want to be unnecessarily wordy.
>1. 'oH bIr qatlh Why is it cold ?
You're having serious problems with word order. Question words like
{qatlh} and {nuqDaq}, which act a lot like adverbial words, go at the
beginning of the sentence. Again, {'oH} is either misplaced or simply
misused here. This should be {qatlh bIr}.
>2. HoS'a' poQ tujwI'qoq The excuse of a heater requires much power
> 'ej and that power is certainly usefull for the
> bIreQtaH tujwI'vaD lI'bequ' bregit lung heater
> HoSvetlh
Forgiving the missing {j} in {lI'bejqu'} and the misspelled {bIreQtagh},
this is pretty good. However, the suffix {-'a'} doesn't just mean merely
"a lot" or "big". {HoS'a'} seems to refer to something like "true energy"
or "brute strength". To say "requires much power", I'd prefer {HoS poQqu'}.
As another point of personal preference, I'd have said {'ach} here instead
of {'ej}.
-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj