tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 16 12:47:05 1993

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Re: Computer Translators



I can't remember if I ever replied to this one or not, so my apologies if
this is redundant.

>HoD Qanqorvo'                Sat, 13 Nov 93 11:04am
 
>>>yuQ rurbe' qablIj DajatlhDI' chotich'a' pagh chotichHa''a'
 
>>chay' tIchlaH mu'tlheghvam?  jIyajbe'.  qatIchHa'ba'.  yuQ rurbogh qab'e'
>>ghajlu'DI', QaQ'a'?  not Dochvetlh vIQoy.
 
>'ej jIyajbe'.  ghorgh yuQ rurlaH qab 'e' vISovbe'.  'ach yuQ rurbe' qablIj
>DajatlhDI' yuQ rur qabwIj DapIH Harlu'.
 
Well, I'll answer in English, since there has already been so much
confusion generated.  Way back in the beginning of this thread, I had
mistakenly said somthing like:  vulqan rur qablIj.  Then after posting it,
I realized I had screwed up.  I had meant:  vulqangan rur qablIj.  vulqan
is the planet Vulcan, vulqangan is a Vulcan person.  So when I
appologized, I wanted to clarify that I didn't mean to imply that your
face looks like a planet.  I'm not sure exactly what it might mean to
compare someone's visage with a planetary body, but I suspect it would be
at least vaguely insulting, so I wanted to make clear that that's NOT what
I was trying to say.  {{:-)


>I'll switch to English here for all to join in.  Qanqor used a grammatical
>structure above that I've been curious about (yuQ rurbogh qab'e').  I like
>the solution he appears to be using, but it may just be context that causes
>the solution I think I see.  The question is, "How does one differentiate
>between 'the klingon that kills the romulan' and 'the romulan that is killed
>by the klingon'?"  I know that these phrases can always be simplified to
>'the klingon' and 'the romulan' (since all klingons kill all romulans), but
>these are simple sentences with which to study the grammatical question.
 
>According to TKD you would probably wind up with no more than
>     romuluSngan HoHbogh tlhIngan
>but does that refer to the klingon or the romulan?  The solution I am inspired
>to by Qanqor is to use the topic suffix (-'e') on the noun you are refering to.
>Thus the English sentences would translate (respectively):
>     romuluSngan HoHbogh tlhIngan'e'
>     romuluSngan'e' HoHbogh tlhIngan
 
The gig on this is:  While the use of -'e' like this is my own devising, I
once had the opportunity to run it by Okrand, and he approved.  I've
written a column in HolQeD on this, don't remember what volume.  Note that
this use of -'e' is a tool of disambiguation, it is not in anyway claimed
that it is mandatory syntax.  Someone pointed out a line, I think from the
new tape, which didn't use the -'e'.  Yeah, sure.  Nobody ever said it was
required.

 
>Dochmey potlhqu' maja'chuq janSIy jIH je, qar'a' Hoch?  {{:-)
 
>Dochmey ram luja'lu'DI' nom Hol ghojlu'
 
teHba'.  'ach latlhpu'vaD Dalpu' ja'chuqghachmaj 'e' vISaH.  nom maghoj
jIH SoH je net Sov.  ghoj'a' latlhpu'?  qIm'a' chaH?  SaH'a'?  vaj
"sarcasm"Hom vIghItlhpu'.

                --Qanqor




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