tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 10 08:04:15 1995
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law'/puS
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: law'/puS
- Date: Tue, 10 Jan 95 11:04:12 EST
Maybe I'm the only one for whom this is a revellation, but...
I learned comparatives before I really understood adjectival
verbs and then never really went back to study comparatives any
more. Only recently have I realized that what is really going
on is a combination of two adjectival verbs for each of two
nouns. In other words {loDpu' tIn law' be'pu' tIn puS} (whether
or not you accept the generality) literally means, "Many big
men, few big women." If that carries across the meaning of "Men
are bigger than women," then it gives a lot more clarity to how
far we can stretch this construction (which isn't very far).
Meanwhile, we MIGHT consider this to be the canon that shows
that it is acceptable to have multiple adjectivals following a
noun. Most of us already thought this was the case and if
anybody thinks this is too much of a stretch, please speak up.
Krankor challenges us to figure out how to say, "I speak
Klingon better than you." I recommend that tools other than
{law'/puS} can handle that without a great deal of difficulty,
resulting in an even more accurate description than we have
from the original English, choosing among:
tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhchu' 'ach Dajatlhchu'be'.
tlhIngan Hol vIghojta' 'ach DaghojlI'.
tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhbej 'ach Dajatlhlaw' neH.
loQ tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhlaH 'ach wej DajatlhlaH.
I think the conjunction {'ach} implies that there is a contrast
between the two sentences, setting up a comparison. The quality
of accomplishment of the objective of the verb is best handled
with verbal suffixes rather than adjectival verbs in the first
place. Here, instead of a mere comparison between two
ill-defined qualities, we have absolute measurements of each
member being compared.
"I speak Klingon better than you," tells you less than the
Klingon equivalents which indicate more precisely how well I
speak Klingon and how well you speak Klingon. It is yet another
place where we can live up to Worf's sage advice: "A Klingon
MAY be inaccurate, but he is NEVER approximate."
How many times have people faced, "You are good at
speaking Klingon," and tried to twist it into {tlhIngan Hol
jatlhwI' QaQ SoH} instead of the simpler {tlhIngan Hol
Dajatlhchu'}?
I intend to face Krankor's other challenges as to how to
express specific concepts without the liberal use of {-ghach}.
I will do so when I have the new HolQeD with me...
charghwI'
--
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