tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 10 10:57:49 1993

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Re: law' puqpu'

On Sep 9,  7:00pm, "Matthew Whiteacre" wrote:

     Rats. Left TKD in the car. Oh well...

> >>puqbe' wa'DIch wej puqpu'ma'.

> The intension was to say "Our first three children are daughters".  How 
> would I say this?

     First comment is that Klingon generally tends to downplay gender, so
this is a not-particularly-Klingon thing to say. I suspect a Klingon would be
very unimpressed with the information. My humble first attempt would include
the pronoun as "to be". Unfortunately, the only 3rd person pronoun I can
think of without TKD is 'oH, and I think that's for things instead of
speakers, and one presumes that being female, they are speakers? Anyway, I'd
put the pronoun between puqbe' and wa'DIch and I'd change puqbe' into
puqbe'pu''e', indicating that they are plural and that the female aspect is
the topic of the sentence.
 
> >>rupjajDaq qoSHeyDaj
> 
> This was to be "Our due date is on tax day".  Again, I could not figure out
> how to put a verb in the sentence?

     Is there no verb for "be born"? The first effort should always be to
structure the sentence around some verb other than "to be". It would be easy
to say "She apparently be born on tax day," so why structure it as a "to be"
sentence?

     Similarly, revisiting the first sentence, as a Klingon, I would probably
make it two sentences and make the whole message:

     I have three children.
     Them girls.
     On tax day my fourth child be born, I expect it.

--   charghwI'

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