tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 24 05:39:08 1994
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: KLBC: Day to Die
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 10:30:42 EDT
>According to R.B Franklin:
>> Would it be correct to say the following:
>>
>> vulqangan SoH'a' pagh romuluSngan SoH'a'?
>> romuluSngan jIHbe'qu'.
>> jaj QaQ 'oHmo' DaHjaj'e' jIHeghrup.
>I believe all of these to be correct. While someone might whine
>about the suffix {-'a'} being ambiguous because it can be
>either a noun suffix or a verb suffix and the pronoun can be
>used either as a noun or a verb, considering the pronouns as
>augmented nouns in the FIRST sentence is ABSURD. I will suggest
>that the first sentence might more commonly be seen as:
>vulqangan romuluSngan ghap SoH'a'?
>Besides being more concise, it also removes another ambiguity,
>since {pagh} can either be a conjunction or a number, while
>{ghap} is only a conjunction. It is a minor point, but a
>beginner might find the newer example easier to parse.
Actually, I think the first one was better. Recall that "-'a'" turns a
verb into a yes/no question. Near as I can tell, "vulqangan romuluSngan
ghap SoH'a'?" is asking rather unambiguously if it's true that the
addressee is either a Vulcan or a Romulan. A corect answer is very likely
to be "HIja'!" and nothing more. This isn't cutesy like in English; it's
what the "-'a'" suffix does: it implies the answer should be yes or no.
The difficulty we're having here is that in English we overuse the
conjunction "or" to mean (among other things) "I'm not sure what
conjunction belongs here; whether either or both or neither is true, *and*
I'm asking you to tell me". It's a conjunction question word (cf Lojban
ji) and not a true conjucti9on. How do we handle that meaning in Klingon?
We're not told, but the two-question approach seems a good plan (vulqangan
SoH'a' pagh romuluSngan SoH'a'). Basically, I've asked you two yes/no
questions, conjoined with an exclusive or. It's pretty plain I want
answers to both (i.e. which are you) and moreover that I expect precisely
one of those answers to be "yes" (i.e. that you're one or the other, not
both or neither). That's pretty much what the English
question-conjucnction "or" does as well.
~mark