tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 09 13:09:08 2006

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RE: [Klingon_Language] (unknown)

Russ Perry Jr ([email protected])

• From: Russ Perry Jr <[email protected]>
• Subject: RE: [Klingon_Language] (unknown)
• Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 16:08:24 -0500 (EST)

"DloraH" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> So with those examples in mind, how would you render the 
>> difference between:
>> 
>>    "Kruge killed the traitor with his (i.e. Kruge's) knife."
>>    "Kruge killed the traitor with his own (i.e. the traitor's) knife."
>> 
>> {tajDaj} "his knife" alone is ambiguous.  One could always repeat the
>> noun - {Qugh taj} "Kruge's knife" vs. {maghwI' taj} "the traitor's
>> knife" - but I don't think this captures the irony (or justice?) of
>> the second.

> Without the (), the english is just as ambiguous.

While grammatically both sentences are ambiguous (possibly excepting
if you knew the traitor was female), I think most English speakers
will tend to perceive the sentence having "his knife" to imply Kruge,
and even more so the sentence having "his own knife" to imply the
traitor, as the owner of the knife, respectively.  This distinction,
I believe, is what the original poster meant (specifically that "his"
vs "his own" tends to disambiguate on a perception/assumption level,
not a grammatical one).
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