tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 16 14:13:00 2004

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RE: Using the word "not"

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, David Trimboli wrote:
> Either way, {qoHpu''e' neH not lughIjlu'} makes sense.  "One never scares
> only FOOLS."  "As for fools only, one never scares them."  I'm not sure I
> see this as an improvement over {not qoHpu''e' neH [lu]ghIjlu'} "One never
> scares only FOOLS."

I think the original English translation is actually bad.  "Only fools are
never afraid" -- I just can't figure out how that translation comes from
/not qoHpu''e' neH lughIjlu'/.  If I had to translate this without knowing
the original intent, I would come up with "One never scares only fools."
But this has a completely different meaning than the presented English...

So it may be that in this case, the original English translation was in
error to begin with...  If I was to reverse the English, "Only fools are
never scared", I'd probably come up with something like /not vangvIp
qoHpu''e' neH/ -- "Only fools are never afraid to act."  Okay, but no big
deal.  The original question was really about how to parse things like
/not/ when they show up out of "order" (at least, the "order" an English
speaker might expect).

I find that English actually can map to the syntax of Klingon rather well
in most cases.  Taking /not qoHpu''e' neH lughIjlu'/ from the top, I think
a viable English translation would be:

"Never are only fools scared."

The English pattern here follows pretty closely the Klingon.  This works
for a lot of Klingon adverbs, I think; while English tends to put adverbs
after the verbs they modify ("I blah often", "I blah alone", "I blah
quickly"), there is the alternate and common pattern of putten them first,
and this maps to Klingon well ("Often, I blah", "Alone, I blah", "Quickly,
I blah").  Works for me.  :)

> Unfortunately, the proverb is simply vague, and we have to live with it.

Yup.  :P  I really wonder if that was the best he could do.  ;)

...Paul

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