tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 07 00:43:08 2003
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Re: "How is your food?" "What book?"
- From: "d'Armond Speers" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: "How is your food?" "What book?"
- Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2003 23:38:07 -0600
In my opinion (FWIW) it's not asking the question you think it's asking. In
English, we use "how is ..." to mean a variety of different things. For
instance, "how is your food" means "are you enjoying your food / does your
food taste good / ...", but "how is your son?" means "is your son healthy /
happy / out of jail yet / ...". "How is your wife?" means, ..., well, I
won't go there.
If Klingons interpret the question literally, then {chay' 'oH SojlIj'e'}
(don't forget the {-'e'} on {SojlIj}) is an existential question. "Is your
food? How is it?" Or paraphrased, "how is it that your food is?" When
using {chay'} (or {ghorgh} / {qatlh}), think of what the sentence means
without the additional question word. What does {'oH SojlIj'e'} mean? This
is what you're asking the "how" about.
I don't think we know whether a Klingon will interpret {chay' 'oH SojlIj'e'}
literally, or whether they map it onto various underlying meanings as we do
in English, and thus get to the "does your food taste good" kind of meaning.
That's why people were suggesting paraphrases such as {'ey''a' SojlIj} or
{SojlIj DatIv'a'}.
--
Holtej 'utlh
>From: Klingon Warrior <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: "How is your food?" "What book?"
>Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 21:38:32 -0700 (PDT)
>
>I understand those translations (by the way, when using /'oH/ as your
>defining verb you need the suffix /-'e'/ attached to the last noun), and
>yes they are just fine, but I'm trying to start a discussion about simple
>questions involving only one element...the noun. /chay' 'oH SojlIj/,
>literally means, "your food is how?" I was wondering if that version is
>ungramatical when dealing with question sentences. Thanks for your input!!
>
>[email protected] wrote:For "What book?" doesn't "Where is the book"
>mean the same thing, in that case its
>easy... /nuqDaq oH' paq?/.
>
>and for "How's the food?" What about /Soj QaQ qar'a'?/ I think this is
>literally, "The food
>is good isn't that so?" It sounds a little threatening, but I guess a
>Klingon would take it as
>an insult if the food wasn't good!
>
>On 6 Jul 2003 at 14:07, Klingon Warrior wrote:
>
> > I'd like to know if I'm saying these two sentences correctly...
> > "How is your food?" /chay' 'oH SojlIj?/
> > "What book?" (As if someone asked me to grab a book for them and I
> > just don't see one to grab) /nuq paq?/ For the second sentence, I
> > know that can't be right (at least I think). Sure seems like there
> > should be a verb in there, but I don't know how to incorporate one in.
> > I can ask other questions using the word /nuq/, but with just simple
> > nouns, I'm lost. Thank you!
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