tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 30 21:35:08 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: mujatlhmoH nuq jay'

...
> "I am talking about biology" mugh neHchugh vay'
> vaj chaq jatlh {mujatlhmoH yInQeD}.
> 
> This is quite idiomatic. There must be other better solutions to express
> "about". What think the rest of you?
...
> Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos

     Given the cultural tendency to speak only when there is something that
requires saying, this idiom makes more sense than most. I kinda like it. It
has the same idea behind it as "Biology causes us to discuss," without the
grammatical weirdness.

     I'm starting to think that {ja'chuq} does a better job of translating to
"confer" than "discuss", since we might discuss biology, but we would never
confer biology. Meanwhile, the more I think about it the more sense it makes
to say that biology causes us to talk. In this case, though, I think maybe it
DOES make sense to use {-'e'}:

                    nujatlhmoH yInQeD'e'

     I'm not sure about that prefix because of the weirdness of {-moH}, but I
think it is right. "It causes to talk us". This is much like {qaghojmoH},
meaning "I teach you," though it is litterally, "I cause to learn you." We do
not try to place "you" as the subject of "learn", even though you are. "I" am
the subject of the causation, not the learning. I think that is the general
pattern.

     This is a change from my earlier post. I thought it out more and think
this interpretation of the wonder of {-moH} better fits canon.

charghwI'

Back to archive top level