tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 14 11:10:19 1994
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Re: introductions
According to R.B Franklin:
>
>
> >>Is that a leveq in your pocket or are you glad to see me?
>
> I suspect the Original Klingon version of Mae West's translation was
> something like:
> HIch 'oH'a' Dochvetlh'e' ngaSbogh yopwaHlIj pagh cholegh 'e' bIquch'a' neH?
>
> yoDtargh
majQa'! ... Mostly. You were doing soooo well... I really like
most of this and it shows a lot of skill with a complex concept
expressed in Klingon. Once you hit the pronoun {'e'}, however,
you lost it.
{'e'} as a pronoun is always the object of the verb that
follows it. {quch} means "kidnap". {Quch} means "be happy",
which is intransitive, so {'e'} cannot be its object. Replace
everything after {pagh} with {... choleghmo' bIQuch'a' neH?}
and I think you'll have what you were after.
Don't feel too bad. The first half of this sentence was very
complex and I think you actually pulled it off. Other experts
may have opinions about it and insights as to how it might be
better (and they may even think it is wrong), but it was quite
clear to me and I think it works. I find it particularly
interesting that you managed to make the {-'e'} suffix on
{Dochvetlh'e'} satisfy both the function of indicating the head
noun of the relative clause AND as the noun, which is
effectively in apposition with {'oH}. The noun following {'oH}
needed that prefix anyway.
I'll be interested in other opinions on this as well, but as
Beginner's Grammarian, I felt the main task is to show you how
things fell apart on the {'e'} pronoun construction.
The idea is that {'e'} represents the entire earlier sentence
and stands as the direct object of the second verb, as in
{bI'IH 'e' vIQub}. "I think that you are beautiful." See? (Who
says you can't sweet talk in Klingon?) The word "that" in the
English stands for the entire other sentence. "You are
beautiful. I think that."
In your example, it falls apart: "You see me. You are happy
that." It doesn't work that way. This is another example of how
words in English can be used in more different ways than in
Klingon. You were thinking, "You are happy that you see me." In
this case, the word "that" is not really the direct object of
"happy". Actually, I'd have a rough time explaining WHAT the
word "that" is doing in that sentence. (Do I hear the drip of
salivating linguists?)
Go to it, linguists. I'm a Klingonist, not an Englishist.
charghwI'