tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 09 13:45:05 2006
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RE: [Klingon_Language] (unknown)
Voragh:
> >> 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.
DloraH:
> > Without the (), the english is just as ambiguous.
Russ Perry Jr:
>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).
That's exactly it. Absent any other context, I would naturally assume that
"his own" referred to the traitor, not Kruge. (I'm not sure why - perhaps
because "his own" is closer to the word "traitor" in the sentence?) That
extra information added or implied by "own" is what Karen and I have been
wondering how to translate.
Another example to ponder: my computer at work (the one I use) vs. my own
computer at home (the one I actually own and may have brought to
work). Here the distinction is clearly one of personal property; i.e. to
own something.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons