tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 03 08:38:41 1997
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Re: KLBC: Introduction to the Black Fleet
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: Introduction to the Black Fleet
- Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 11:39:11 -0400 ()
- Priority: NORMAL
On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:19:22 -0700 (PDT) Robyn Stewart
<[email protected]> wrote:
> SuStel wrote:
> >[email protected] on behalf of Robyn Stewart wrote:
> >> SuStel wrote:
> >> > [email protected] on behalf of [email protected] wrote:
> >> >> lutDaj 'oH lutvam'e'.
> >> >> tam logh.
> >> >> bir logh net Sov.
> >> >> chuSmo' SuvwI' yIn 'e' wIlIjlaw'
> >> >It took me a minute to parse this, but it's very good!
> >>
> >> I thought it an error. If you translate it literally you can come
> >> up with: "Because a warrior's life is noisy we forget it." I think
> >> it is the noiselessness of space Hat considers we forget. But this
> >> is a sentence-as-object construction so the "it" cannot refer to
> >> the lines above, has to refer to "because a warrior's life is
> >> noisy."
Not quite. "Because a warrior's life is noisy" is not a
sentence. It is a dependent clause and is part of the same
sentence as "We apparently forget that." Meanwhile, the sentence
it has to refer to is {bir logh net Sov.} So why would a noisy
life make one forget that space is cold? The original does seem
to skip this intermediate sentence. THAT is where the flaw here
falls.
> >>I don't like the idea of having a sentence fragment as the
> >> object of a sentence as object.
Right. It doesn't happen.
> >> So yIn has to be interpreted as a
> >> verb, here. I get something like: "We seem to forget that
> >> they/she/he/it live(s) because a warrior/warriors is/are noisy."
wejpuH.
> > Why can't the {'e'} refer to the previous lines? Azetbur said {'e'
> > neHbe' vavoy}, in reference to someone else's sentence.
THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE (singular). Not two sentences earlier. One
sentence earlier.
> Oh, it can refer to the preceding line, like Shakespearean characters
> completing each other's iambic pentameter, but in this case the
> sentence that it refers to is already there. I accept:
>
> tam logh
> 'e' wIlIjlaw'
That would work fine if {bIr logh} were not in the way.
> It's no different from tam logh 'e' wIlIjlaw'.
> But when you actually have a sentence right before the 'e', that's
> the sentence that is the object. Not some random sentence from
> earlier in the discourse. At best this is the equivalent of English
> wrong antecedent:
>
> Yesterday I saw the ship Queen of the Sea. I was with my aunt. Her
> displacement is 400 tonnes.
Excellent example.
> I think the Klingon under discussion is less intelligible than that
> English parallel, and it's thinking in English that makes the
> Klingon antecedent seem reasonable.
jIQoch, 'ach ram. The dependent clause does make things more
confusing, but the point of it is you can't say A. B. 'e' C and
expect the {'e'} to represent A. It's that simple.
> >> >> loghDaq QIch tu'lu'be'.
> >> > That's an interesting way to put it.
> >> "There is no speech in space?" qatlh Daj?
> >
> >In English, one usually hears "There is no sound in space." And
> >since we don't have "sound" in our Klingon vocabulary, I thought
> >this a nice way to do it.
>
> *Contact* Dabejpu''a'? taghtaHvIS much, tera' jabbI'IDmey DItlha'.
> Hopqu'DI' tera', mevchu' QoQ 'ej tam logh. tamqu'. majQa'.
vIbejta'. vItIv. <<Sut qIj tuQbogh loDpu''e'>> vIbej je 'ej
*Contact* *scene* wa'DIch rur <<Sut qIj tuQbogh loDpu''e'>>
*scene* Qav 'ach tlhaQ.
> - Qov.
charghwI'