tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 18 07:44:15 1993
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Re: wot vItu'laHbe'law'
- From: Paul J. Clegg <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: wot vItu'laHbe'law'
- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 10:44:02 -0400
>From: [email protected]
>To: "Klingon Language List" <[email protected]>
>Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1993 06:36:26 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Comparative/Superlative constructions really bother me, as they do a lot
>of people. Maybe the reason is because THERE IS NO VERB!!! That somehow
>seems to illegitimatize it. That might just be my Terran point of view
>trying again to dictate my opinions about an _alien_ language.
>
>In old Klingon, maybe law' and puS were subtly different in semantics:
>maybe they had meant "be greater than" and "be less than" in that
>kind of construction.
>
>Ok, for an example, how about this:
>
>HeSwI' ngIm law' DenIbQatlh ngIm puS
>
>It is easy to see what this really means according to TKD, but actually
>a direct translation would uproot something to the effect of:
>
>"criminal disgusting many Denebian slime devil disgusting few," or
>rather, "many (a) disgusting criminal few disgusting Denebian slime devil."
>
>The lack of a verb seems to prevent the tacking on of any verb suffixes,
>like -ba'.
>What if you wanted to say, "The criminal is *obviously* more disgusting
>than a Denebian slime devil." Or how could you say "The criminal was
>more disgusting..." or how could you even turn it into a question, if
>you wanted to? Well, maybe you could add qar'a', but there is no such
>easy way out like that for other verb suffixes.
>
>Maybe it's a colloquialism that eventually defeated the previously
>proper construction. Quite frankly, I dunno.
>
>SaqaD: Who here can figure out how to say, "The commander who is bolder
>than the officer destroyed the enemy space station."?
Well, in the dictionary, law' and puS are listed as being verbs, with no
special markings as being "just" for the superlative construction(s)...
In the superlative construction design, it appears they may be taking on
the role of "adjective". I would think you might be able to put the
verb suffixes you want on law' and puS.
As for your challenge, I'd say make use of the -bogh verb suffix, perhaps
in conjunction with the 'e' thingie to connect sentences as objects...
Sorry, gotta run to class...
...Paul