tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 29 19:47:19 1994

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Re: Translation help!



batlh choja', Will Martin quv:
=On Jan 28,  1:28pm, "Matt Gomes" wrote:
=> Hov Doq cha' Maug tIn

The sentence you *intended* to translate was: "He showed Big Maug the red
star".

*mawgh* tInvaD Hov Doq 'ang

How to tell the verb from the adjective? There's a verb before -vaD, there's
a start. There's a sequence of verbs there (Doq 'ang), and Klingon grammar
doesn't allow this, so all but the last must be adjectives attached to the
direct object. It all comes out in the wash. (Which is pretty much what
charghwI' said ;) ).

There's the cases when you don't know whether something's a *noun* or a verb,
of course, which complicates things, but there's means to deal with that
too (-qu', -bej, -na')

=     No, you are not just being difficult. You are confused and you want
=help. I'll offer a non-linguist's perspective. I read that sentence as:

Don't take this the wrong way, charghwI', but really, for one who so stresses
Klingon military values, you do spend an unneccesary amount of time 
apologising for offering your opinion. This is a forum where opinions are 
freely exchanged, discussed, and evaluated, and that can surely be taken as 
a given. (What an unfortunate way of putting it! ;) ). bItlhIjnISbe'bej, 
charghwI' quv.

(Being a Klingon means never having to say you're sorry? ;) )

=Prefixes are probably also not acceptable
=on adjectival verbs, though I've seen it done on this list.

Hm, I haven't noticed this. Could you provide an example? I'd be very
interested in seeing how they thought they'd get away with it ;)

-- 
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