tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 10 07:51:07 1998
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Re: equally beautiful
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: equally beautiful
- Date: Tue, 10 Feb 98 10:45:01 EST
ja' peHruS:
>No, I really needed an answer. Actually, I do not mind at all that I am
>getting answers from other sources than KLBC. I appreciate all the input.
The answer isn't going to change just because you ask the question
again, even if you ask a different person. You yourself even gave
the answer when you asked it before, so I really cannot understand
what you're looking for. {tIn 'unlIj; qegh rur.} "Your pot is as
big as a barrel." Right?
>...Also, you are definitely right that we cannot
>make up our own constructions...
So discard your mutant *{law'/nIb} already!!!
>I want to say that "The water in this bottle is exactly as hot as the liquor
>in that vat."
nIb balvam bIQ Hat qeghvetlh HIq Hat je. nap, qar'a'? Okay, I
rephrased it to "The temperature of this bottle's water and the
temperature of that vat's liquor are identical." Even though I
don't have a universally applicable formula for translating the
sort of thing you're asking about, specific sentences are quite
readily dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
>What I really want, of course, is a formula. It is not which
>sentence; it is the construction(s) which express that one noun's quality is
>just the same as another noun's quality.
You want something that will make it easier to translate, right?
There's one obvious solution to the question of how to translate
things in general: practice. You'll find that appropriate ways
to express ideas will become obvious, and you'll also discover a
wonderful side effect: problematic grammar will cease to appear
because you'll be thinking in terms of *Klingon* grammar instead
of translations of English grammar.
Translation formulas are a crutch. They only work well when the
source language is rigorously defined (and limited in scope) and
usually they produce rather stilted results. They don't work in
general for translating from colloquial English.
>Since N+SV+law' N+SV+puS works only
>for unequal comparisons, I am looking for a comparison structure which works
>for equal comparison.
There *is* an "equal comparison" structure given in KGT, and you
*do* know it. {VS N1. N2 rur.} "N1 is as VS as a N2." This is
not always going to be appropriate, but it *is* there to be used.
For other situations, what's wrong with the verbs {rap} or {nIb}?
>Thanks to this listserv, either we solve such problems through our
>discussions, or we still wait for MO to solve them for us.
qay'be'qu' ghu'vam jay'. This one, at least, is *not* a problem.
-- ghunchu'wI'