tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 16 12:47:05 1993
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Re: Computer Translators
- From: Captain Krankor <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Computer Translators
- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 13:46:08 -0700
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