tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 02 21:07:57 1994
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How do you get across Much or Some?
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: How do you get across Much or Some?
- Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 10:06:29 -0500
- In-Reply-To: Will Martin's message of Wed, 2 Feb 94 09:33:43 EST <[email protected]>
>From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 09:33:43 EST
>X-Mailer: UVa PCMail 1.8.4
>On Feb 1, 7:07pm, Al Goodnis [-qor] wrote [and charghwI' replies]:
>...
>> I have been having trouble translating much or some into tlhIngan.
>> Such as;
>>
>> I do not understand much of what is being said here.
>The grammarians have the authoritative answer. My suggestion is:
> naDev mu'leghmey law' vIyajbe'
We have? Wow. I assume you meant "mu'tlheghmey", in which case your
sentence makes perfect sense to me, and what's more seems eminently usable
and natural. Other options include more wordy constructions closer to the
English like "naDev mu'tlheghmey law' jatlhlu'bogh vIyajbe'" (just
inserting a word to make the "being said" come through. Not necessary, I
bet). The "much" in the English sentence is acting as a noun, meaning
"many things" (or possibly "most things"), so we can use the same meaning
in Klingon. I personally don't like seeing "Doch" when a more specific
word will do, and "mu'tlhegh" fills the bill nicely. Works for me.
>> Some of them are dishonorable.
> ghomvetlhDaq quvHa' nuvpu' puS
>Or if "some" implies more than a few, but less than many:
> ghomvetlhDaq puSbe' nuvpu' quvHa'bogh
Ayup for both. Interesting how you inverted which verb is the head verb
here; I imagine either way could work (including the combinations you
didn't state, possibly excepting "puSbe'" as an adjective, but I don't
think so, as we have support for that from the tapes, if not from TKD).
>Which brings up a point of grammar that has recently made me curious.
>With relative clauses, the liberal interpretation of adjectival verbs used
>two ways and {-wI'} nominalized verbs, could I speak of someone who sits,
>speaks, has a headache and bores me in the following manners:
>ba' wuQbogh jatlhwI' Dal = The boring speaker who has a headache sits.
>wuQ jatlhbogh DalwI' ba' = The sitting bore who speaks has a headache.
>jatlh Dalbogh ba'wI' wuQ = The head-aching sitter who is boring speaks.
>Dal ba'bogh wuQwI' jatlh = The speaking head-acher who sits is boring.
>Dal jatlhbogh wuQwI' ba' = The sitting head-acher who speaks is boring.
>jatlh WuQbogh ba'wI' Dal = The boring sitter who has a headache speaks.
>Well... You get the idea. nuq DaQub?
DaH jIwuQ jIH'e'. :-)
>charghwI'
~mark