tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 14 08:58:54 1994

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Re: Computer languages

>>taHmeH "ENTER" yI'uy...

>This is okay as it stands, *BUT* bear in mind what it means.  "Press Enter
>in order that *it* continue."  That's an okay reading of the usual English
>sentence, but if you're thinking of "press enter to continue" in the sense
>of "press enter in order that *you* continue", you should have "bItaHmeH".
>Remember: -meH clauses are a fine way to handle infinitive phrases in many
>cases, but Klingon does *not* have infinitives.  All the verbs are finite,
>even the ones in -meH clauses.

Actually, this has come up before, and I'm afraid you're off-base,
mark.  -meH verbs can indeed be unprefixed and indefinite, although
they certainly can also be explicitly prefixed.  That does not mean
that they are infinitives per se either, of course.  But the canonical
example from the dictionary cheat-sheet:

Dochvetlh DIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH     "How much do you want for that?"

If the DIl had to have an explicit subject, this sentence would have
to be either:

Dochvetlh vIDIlmeH Huch 'ar DaneH

or

Dochvetlh DIllu'meH Huch 'ar DaneH

So "taHmeH "ENTER" yI'uy" does NOT necessarly mean "Press Enter in
order that *it* continue".  I've never really liked it, but there it
is.


>'Course, then there's the question of whether or not "taH" is the best
>verb; "bItaHmeH <<Enter>> yI'uy" sounds like a threat to me: if you don't
>press Enter, you won't continue existing... :)

This is a better criticism.  I think taH is wholly inappropriate
there.  Not the right meaning of "continue".  In fact, I'm not even
sure that any rendering of "continue", i.e. with a -taH suffix on a
verb, isn't too literal.  I think I might do this as something like:

vumqa'meH "ENTER" yI'uy

After all, -taH indicates continuous, on-going action.  -qa' means to
resume, which is really what is meant.


>>[email protected]

>~mark

        --Qanqor

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