tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 17 09:22:05 1996
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Re: thursday:today
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>Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:34:43 -0700
>From: "Kenneth Traft" <[email protected]>
>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?
>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. 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'.
That's not a change in tense, but a change in person. Otherwise, though, I
agree with you (though I note that YOU changed tense in your translation,
from "does not use..." "does not consider..." to "did you tell..." while
the Klingon quite correctly uses the same form for all (correctly in that
it should not be using -pu' or -ta', since the past tense is what's needed
and that's indicated by context; -pu' and -ta' are aspect markers which
don't enter into this sentence)).
>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 or if not
>say:
>qatlh maHvaD lutlIj Daja'?
You could do it that way, but your translation actually was on the right
track: "qatlh maHvaD Daja'": "Why did you tell it to us?" The verb DOES
have an object: an implied "it", which is implied by the use of the "Da-"
prefix instead of "bI-". "qatlh maHvaD bIja'" would mean "why did you talk
to us" or something like that. Take your last sentence and replace
"lutlIj" with "'oH" and then remember that pronouns are optional especially
when implied by other parts of the senetence and you'll see what I mean.
~mark
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