tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 13 07:03:01 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: RE: KLBC: latlh vImugh

On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 05:35:36 -0800 Alan Anderson 
<[email protected]> wrote:
...
> I should eat - jISopnISlaw'.
> I can eat - jISoplaH.
> I may eat - jISop net chaw'.
> 
> *I* certainly differentiate between the concepts!
> 
> Something like "buy me a drink and we can talk" doesn't fit any of
> them, in my opinion.  I'd just say {jItlhutlh 'e' yIDIl.  maja'chuq.}
> The "and" here seems to mean something like a sequencing "then", and 
> it looks like tlhIngan Hol doesn't really have one of them.

Interesting. I'd probably say:

jItlhutlh vIneH. DaDIlchugh vaj chaq maja'chuq.

Your use of {'e'} sounds a little awkward to my ear, and I 
prefer setting a clear conditional here. I am not promising to 
talk. I merely point out that if you don't pay for my drink, 
your chances of discussing anything with me are rather dim. If 
my cup is filled and I don't have to pay for it, then I will be 
more in the mood to talk. I feel like context covers the object 
of {DIl} without the {'e'} needed. You are not paying for the 
fact of my drinking. You pay for my drink. Meanwhile, the 
vocabulary is a little weak in this area, so leaving the name of 
the drink as an implicit pronoun works for me, or I could 
explicitly tell you WHICH drink you need to buy.

jIHvaD romuluSngan HIq Daje'chugh vaj chaq maja'chuq.

> If you really do mean "If you buy me a drink we will be able to talk" 
> then maybe {-laH} is appropriate, but if the implied cause-and-effect
> is really important, I'd probably come up with a translation like
> {maja'chuqmeH, jItlhutlh 'e' DaDIlnIS}.  

I like the first part of this, but I still think that "to pay 
for that I drink" is awkward both in Klingon and in the 
resulting translation. You pay for the drink. Perhaps 
{jItlhuthmeH bIDIlnIS}, but {HIq DaDIlnIS}. A sentence just 
feels like the wrong object for this verb in this setting. An 
action would have to be related to the verb {DIl} through {-meH} 
or {-mo'} with {DIl} used intransitively before it would sound 
good to me. You pay in order for something to happen or because 
something happens, but you don't pay that something happens. See?

> If I wanted to keep it as a
> command, I'd try {jItlhutlh 'e' yIDIl vaj maja'chuq}, but I'm a teeny 
> bit apprehensive about using {vaj} after an imperative.

I'm more openly apprehensive about it. It sounds weird to me.
 
> -- ghunchu'wI'

charghwI'

Back to archive top level