tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 07 19:31:41 1998

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RE: Ha'DIbaHHom

lab K'ryntes:

> TPO wrote:
> 
> > >Qebgharghmey ghaj vIghro'wIj chu'.
> >
> > vaj  cha' nay' DatIvlaH;  Qebgharghmey vIghro' je.
> > mmmm, 'ey
> >
> > DloraH
> 
>   nenchoHchugh vISop.  DaH, SuvwI' je' yapbe' 'oH.

I see what you're going for, and if you had added <-meH> to <je'>, it
would almost have worked. Unfortunately, as charghwI' likes to point
out, this sort of thing is hard in Klingon.

If you wanted to say "It's sufficient to feed a warrior", <SuvwI'
je'meH, yap 'oH> works just fine. But when you want to say "It's NOT
sufficient", you run into problems. The reason for this is the way
<-meH> works. The action of the main sentence is done in order to
accomplish the goal of the <-meH> clause, so what you would be saying is
basically "its insufficiency accomplishes the goal of feeding the
warrior". But the warrior is not fed, and the goal is not accomplished,
and the whole sentence falls apart.

In this case it's probably best to just say <DaH machqu'mo' vISopQo'>.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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