tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 14 23:32:24 1994
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Re: How do you say....
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: How do you say....
- Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 08:50:54 EST
On Feb 14, 5:32pm, joel peter anderson wrote:
> Subject: How do you say....
>
>
> Have you taken care of the program bugs?
>
> I was trying:
>
>
> De'Wi'Daq ghunghachghew DaHoH 'a'?
>
> [Computer] [program-noun][bug] you kill ?
>
> Does that make any sense?
Admirable attempt. I see a few problems. The first grammatical point is
that your separate word {'a'} should be a suffix on {DaHoH}.
Another point is the somewhat controversial use of {-ghach} on a bare
verb stem. Glen Prochel pointed out that the wording in TKD 4.2.9 doesn't
really support that. It seems that the {-ghach} suffix was specifically
created in order to nominalize verbs that need suffixes in order to have
meaning, and no other usage, no matter how convenient, is justified. My guess
is that if you wanted to nominalize {ghun}, the most sensible form would be
{ghunta'ghach}, since having a program implies that the process of
programming is complete (perfective) and that the completion was intentional.
A program is, after all, the goal of the process of programming and a program
does not exist until that goal is achieved (which is what {-ta'} is all
about).
Of course, this assumes that Klingons refer to computer programs at all.
This is probably a safe assumption, but it might very well be that the
technology is such that the process of programming the computer would be more
like having a conversation with a servant than like writing code. In such a
case, {De'wI' vIghunta'} would just mean "I told the computer what I want it
to do; I programmed the computer." Later, you would not tell the computer
"Run the program," which is currently difficult, since we have no noun for
"program" and no verb for "run" in the sense of "run a program." Instead you
might tell the computer {Qu' yItagh} "Begin the task," (using words we DO
have).
If this latter scenario is correct, then your statement would be more
like {DaH Qapqu''a' De'wI'?} "Does the computer very much function now?" or
if you were more specifically asking a programmer if he had finished his
task, {DaH Qapqu' De'wI' 'e' DaqaSmoHta''a'?} "Have you succeeded in causing
to happen that the computer now very much functions?" There would not be a
differentiation between hardware and software. The computer is one thing. It
responds to what you tell it to do, or it dysfunctions. There are no other
options.
Lastly, you assume that the human computer term "bug" is carried over
into Klingon. Again, this assumption may be correct, but we have nothing in
canon to make this a verified fact.
Of course, all of this is merely my opinion.
charghwI'