tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 29 01:57:23 1994

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KBTP: Psalm 23 revisited; pIn tIn



ghItlh pIn tIn:

>  I deliberately used jIHvIpbe' even though I could have avoided 
> it, because I feel Klingonists have to face the issue squarely.  
> This means "I am not afraid", NOT "I am not afraid to be" as many 
> Klingonists claim.  I could have said jIghomvIpbe', but I don't 
> want to pussyfoot around the central issue. 

jang Guido#1:

> Where do you get off saying that?! This proposition completely 
> lacks any support from TKD or any other canonical source. {jIH} 
> used with verbal suffixes is a verb corresponding to the copula in 
> the first person singular. The line {mIgh jIHvIpbe'} carries 
> implications that are most inappropriate for this passage. 

'ej vIghItlh:

I agree with Guido#1.  If pIn tIn disagrees with the predominant 
opinion, as he says he does, the burden is on him to justify his 
divergent opinion, which he does not do.  

TKD 6.3 shows that when the pronouns are used as verbs, they mean 
approximately 'I am ...', 'you are ...', where (in English) the 
complement of the form of "to be" (in the place of the "...") is 
in Klingon the object of the verb.  jIHvIpbe' would have to mean 
'I am not afraid to be ...', and pIn tIn's "mIgh jIHvIpbe'" could 
only mean 'I am not afraid to be evil', concerning which I have
to agree with Guido#1.

But it doesn't even mean that, because it's ungrammatical.  mIgh
is a verb, not an adjective (nonexistent in tlhIngan Hol) or a
noun, and there is no justification for a verb-verb construction
like this (except with neH and verbs of saying, neither of which
is involved here).  The conclusion is that "mIgh jIHvIpbe'"
shouldn't and doesn't work.

- marqem, tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom 

                         Mark A. Mandel 
    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 
  320 Nevada St. :  Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : [email protected] 



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