tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 18 14:34:02 1994
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A new and twisted path to Sentence As Subject -- mwaa haa haa...
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: A new and twisted path to Sentence As Subject -- mwaa haa haa...
- Date: Sun, 18 Sep 94 17:33:59 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "The Samurai" at Sep 18, 94 3:38 pm
Okay, I started off intending to answer this as a normal KLBC
reply, but came accidentally upon something on which I'd like
more broad discourse. In particular, I read the posted English
translation of the earlier Klingon post and began translating
it back to Klingon and ran into something.
According to The Samurai:
>
> On Sun, 18 Sep 1994 [email protected] wrote:
>
> > Hoch yuQmeyvam boghaj 'ach *Europa*
> > SuSaq pa' bonIDQo'
> > tay'ghach tIlo'
> > rojDaq tIlo'
> >
> > b'ret
>
> All these worlds are your except Europa
*Europa*Daq SughoS 'e' tuchlu'.
This is the unexpected thing I ran into. I just accidentally
built a Sentence As Subject construction without using the ugly
generic "it". That first sentence means, "One forbids that you
approach Europa." It also means, "It is forbidden that you
approach Europa," or "Your approach to Europa is forbidden." Of
course, that translation DOES have the forbidden generic "it",
and is essentially Sentence As Subject, but the interesting
part is that it does so only in the more English idiomatic
translation of a perfectly legal Klingon sentence. We
accomplish it by using an indefinite subject, which is legal,
and making {'e'} the object of "forbid", which is legal, and
having it represent the earlier sentence. The result is
essentially Sentence As Subject.
But it is accomplished as a Sentence As Object. Either, this is
beautiful, and one of those rare, accidental additions to the
toolkit to be used by Klingonists everywhere, or it will be yet
another not-quite-thought-out flash in the pan. Only you may
decide. Let me know which you think.
And to further this, since there are those who argue that
{-lu'} can be used with intransitive verbs... but then, I'll
save that discovery for those who grok {-lu'} on intransitives
better than I do.
> Attempt no landing there
[I've already commented on this one in an earlier post.]
> Use them together
It this is what {tay'ghach tIlo'} was supposed to mean, that
might be better stated as something like {tIghommoH 'ej tIlo'}.
> Use them in peace
This would be better as {SurojtaHvIS bIH tIlo'.} Thinking
further, perhaps the intended message might be more directly
stated, {bIH neH bolo'chugh vaj maroj.} "If you use only them,
then we make peace."
> Michael_A._Smith
charghwI'