tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 25 09:31:15 1996

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Re: From/to (was KLBC: Sentence for Martial Arts Project.)


On Sat, 24 Aug 1996 17:17:25 -0700 HoD trI'Qal 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> At 10:18 AM 8/22/96 -0700, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >
> >>Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 22:35:01 -0700
> >>From: [email protected] (HoD trI'Qal)
> >
> >
> >>Okay, now... "from right to left"...

> >>You can add in "from Junior to Senior" the same way... right after <nIHvo'
> >>poSDaq>.  You can either seperate them with a comma, as is done in English,
> >>or put a <je> after the "from right to left, from Junior to Senior"
> >>structure... which would make it mean "from fright to left and from junior
> >>to senior".  I'm going to leave that part of the translation as an exercise
> >>for the student. {{:)
> >
> >Actually, I think you, trI'Qal, fell into a bit of a trap here too.  "From
> >right to left" and "from junior to senior" don't seem to go neatly as such
> >into Klingon.
> 
> 
> In this case, I didn't think the resulting sentence would be too confusing.
> There is nothing that I am aware of that says we cannot have more than one
> noun with a Type-5 attached to it in a sentence.
> 
> Maybe it is my "English-centered" thinking, but I see absolutely nothing
> wrong with what I gave here.  I don't see the "trap" to which you are
> referring at all.
 
The trap as I see it is that you tried to translate word for 
word from the English to the Klingon without considering that 
another casting could have been a lot clearer. There is nothing 
grammatically wrong with {nIHvo' poSDaq} in a sentence, but in 
this particular sentence, it doesn't convey meaning very well.

In particular, {-Daq} seems to carry both the sense of goal of 
motion and the sense of static location, while {-vo'} always 
evokes a sense of motion "from". In this sentence, there is no 
motion (except perhaps in the eyes of the viewer, since they 
might move from one side to the other while noticing the 
sequence).

Instead, ~mark's suggestion makes a LOT more sense to me. When 
you read the Klingon, meaning is easy, whereas in your casting, 
meaning doesn't really happen until you put the words into 
English first. What you are really saying is that the position 
of one person is at a specific side of the other person, hence 
~mark's casting:
 
> >mochDaj nIHDaq QamnIS Hoch nuv. / Every person must stand to the right of
> >his/her superior.  (or maybe it was the left, whatever).
> 
> This certainly works, but I didn't think that a re-casting was *required*
> here, and honestly, I think it is less clear than the original.  I stand by
> what I offered.

I cast a vote to the contrary. The concept is static location 
and ~mark's casting describes that clearly and efficiently. Your 
statement is muddy because of the sense of ill-defined motion. 
Nothing is in motion, so what is this {-vo'} business? I think 
you are hung on an English idiom as if it were not idiomatic at 
all and were the only natural way to express this thought.
 
> >That avoids trying to hold the whole sequence of "from/to" in Klingon, when
> >after all the important relationship is one-to-one.
> >
> >OK, maybe people standing near each other aren't in direct command
> >hierarchy, but suitable choices of words can get around that.  It's the
> >by-twos approach that I think works better.  Unfortunately, that's not an
> >easy thing for a beginner, of course... but neither was the sentence to
> >begin with.
> 
> 
> I wasn't aware that there was an on-going debate about how to say
> "from"/"to".  

This is not a debate about HOW to say "from/to". This is concern 
that this sentence is not a good place to be saying "from/to" in 
the first place.

> If so, perhaps you can give me the subject line so I can dig
> out the old posts, as I really do not see what issue you are bringing up
> here; there is nothing that forbids two type-5 nouns in a sentence (to my
> knowledge.  

~mark is talking symantics while you are talking syntax. There 
is nothing grammatically wrong with having two locative nouns, 
one with {-vo'} and one with {-Daq}. ~mark never suggested 
otherwise. Meanwhile, "from/to" is almost certainly a bad way to 
express relative location of individuals by rank. We use this in 
English, but if you really thought about what "from" and "to" 
mean, you might think this useage is a wee bit odd.

In Klingon {-Daq} tends to carry both the "to" and "at" 
meanings, one which implies motion and the other which does not, 
but {-vo'} always seems to convey direction and motion. It has 
an implied vector to it, and when you speak of the relative 
positions of static entities, it probably is the wrong tool for 
this task. Nobody says you violated rules of grammar. At least 
two people say that you poorly cast a sentence into Klingon, 
translating word for word instead of considering the meaning of 
the sentence in the first place.

> I know I am certainly not up 100% with all the existing canon,
> because we had so much recently), and the resulting sentence is very clear
> (to me, anyway).  I am a firm believer in re-casting, but I don't think this
> situation warrents it at all.
 
And ~mark and I both disagree with you.
 
> >~mark
> 
> 
> --tQ
> 
> 
> ---
> HoD trI'Qal, tlhIngan wo' Duj lIy So' ra'wI'
> Captain T'rkal, Commander IKV Hidden Comet
> Klingon speaker and net junkie!
> HaghtaHbogh tlhIngan yIvoqQo'!  toH... qatlh HaghtaH Qanqor HoD???
> monlI'bogh tlhInganbe' yIvoqQo'!  SoHvaD monlI' trI'Qal...
 
charghwI'

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