tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 14 22:09:21 1996

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RE: thursday:today

According to Kenneth Traft:
>Mark J. Reed  writes
>>tlhIngan Hol lo'be' lutDaj.  tlhIngan Hol qelbe' lutDaj.  qatlh maHvaD
>>Daja'?
>
>I translate this as:
>His story does not use Klingon.   His story does not consider Klingon.  Why
>did you tell it to us?

That's exactly how I translate it also.

>I note a change in tense in the last sentence.  He used third person in the
>first two sentences and then switched to second person.

Are you using the word "tense" to refer to this change in *person*?  The
usual meaning of "tense" is specification of whether an action takes place
in the past, the present, or the future.  Klingon does not explicitly mark
tense in this way.

>Since the "focus" of
>the letter was to all of us it seems he should keep third person in his final
>sentence  qatlh maHvaD ja'.

I had already seen this story with a little more context, and I assumed
that "his story" referred to the *original* storyteller, not to Mark.
(I saw it represented as a real event from the Novell tech support line.)
It makes sense to me as it is.  I don't know whether that's how Mark meant
it to be taken, though.  How about it, Mark?  Can you help us out here?

>Also if second person was to be used since maHvaD is a prepositional phrase
>(or the Klingon equivalent) should the pronoun prefix "bI" been used

{Daja'} has a definite object.  It's unstated in the sentence, but it's
obvious from context that it is "his story".  You translated it just fine
above: "Why did you tell it...?"  If it had been {bIja'}, the translation
would have been "Why did you report...?" which doesn't have quite the same
emphasis.

>...or if not say:
>qatlh maHvaD lutlIj Daja'?

If consider the story to be Mark's, this is right.  Then, of course, the
other two sentences should have used {lutlIj} instead of {lutDaj} to be
consistent about who's being addressed here.  {lutvam} would also work
throughout, sidestepping completely the issue of whose story it is.

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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