tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 11 14:47:16 1998
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Re: KLBC Poetry
ja' edy:
> The position of Subject and Object in sentences of the poem
>alter all time.
Which is why that particular poem is not suitable for anything like a
direct translation into Klingon. Many languages mark the subject and
object with specific grammatical features, making it possible to have
them in varying places within the sentence. Klingon, however, always
places the object before the verb and the subject after it (with one
exception -- ritual toasts -- that isn't relevant here).
>>> nagh tu'lu'pu' He botlhDaq
>>> In the middle of the way there was a stone
>
> << He botlhDaq >> in sentence above is acting as the Subject of the
>sentence: "The middle of the way there was (cutting the -pu') a stone",
>which doesn't mean much sense. I think it's the problem.
Words with {-Daq} are neither subject nor object; they are locatives,
and come at the beginning of the sentence.
>But as I told, there is a "pun" with the words, and may be a
>"poetic license" could be used here.
>>> He botlhDaq nagh tu'lu'pu'
>>> There was a stone in the middle of the way
jang Qov:
>>This says "there HAD BEEN a stone in the middle of the way." That
>>is, at the time under consideration, the stone is no longer there.
>>Is that what you are trying to express, or do you want to talk about
>>the time when the stone was still there?
I don't think {-pu'} has to imply that it isn't there anymore, but it
certainly implies that the important idea is that its being there has
already happened.
> I think the main problem (I should write it when I wrote the poem)
>it that the He botlhDaq is the Object and not the Subject of the sentence.
>But, if there is other thing, please report me.
It's neither the object nor the subject. The object of {tu'} is the
thing which is noticed ({nagh}, in this case), and if you've got {-lu'}
on the verb, there is no explicit subject. Putting a Type 5 suffix on
a noun (except for {-'e'}) marks it as something other than subject or
object.
-- ghunchu'wI'