tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 07 07:01:31 1994

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Re: tlhIngan Hol ghojwI' Hem

Guidovo':

>>     Good. I'd like to add another possible version of this:
>
>>            tlhIngan Hol vIghojtaH 'e' vIHem
>>          "I am proud that I am learning Klingon language."
>
>This strikes me as either an odd reading of TKD's translation of {Hem} or
>else a structure that is too English-oriented. {Hem} looks intransitive to
>me. {'e'} is not really the same as the English "that" in this case. Actually
>English has no real equivalent to {'e'}. "That" in this case is a conjunction
>nominalizing the entire clause following it. Plus, like I said, I really
>don't think {Hem} could take objects. I have a hard time accepting your
>version, unless you perhaps thought {Hem} might really translate as "be proud
>*of*". Otherwise, I'd say you have to use trI'Qal's version (altho the
>{vIHem} there should be {jIHem}).

For someone who makes such a big deal about not being too much like
English (and, I would add, usually with a good deal of validity),
you certainly seem to have no problem blithely assuming that English
notions of transitivity/intransitivity apply to Klingon verbs.  Why
can't Hem take an object?  The only reason I can glean here seems to
be that in English the thing that one is proud of is done as a
prepositional phrase, not as a direct object.  So what?  Klingon
objects are not the same as English direct objects.  I see no reason
that I can't say, oh, "beq vIHem" for "I'm proud of the crew."
Indeed, I too figured that the original error was an omitted 'e'.
Yep, there are other ways to say it, such as "beqmo' jIHem" or
"muHemmoH beq", and which one chooses is a personal decision of
style.  There is really no basis for saying *any* verb *can't* take
an object, although clearly we don't know what some combinations
might mean (For instance, it isn't at all clear what an object on a
verb like bIr might mean, and nobody is claiming it would be the
same as bIrmoH--  chobIr certainly wouldn't mean "You make me
cold").  We've argued about this here a great deal before and I
don't really want to open that whole can of worms again, so I will
limit myself here to simply emphasisis the notion that one should be
careful not to let English notions of direct object unduly influence
one's thinking about what can be a legitimate Klingon object.  They
are not the same thing.

                    --Krankor

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