tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 21 10:45:55 1995
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Re: About {pong}
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: About {pong}
- Date: Sat, 21 Jan 95 13:45:53 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "tlhIyQa" at Jan 20, 95 6:38 pm
According to tlhIyQa:
>
...
> In English, "I name him George" and "I give the name George to him" are
> equivalent. Does this not suggest that in order to translate the sentence into
> Klingon, "George" would be the direct object and "him" the indirect object? TKD
> includes directions for indirect objects. Why not just treat {pong} like any
> other verb which takes an indirect object?
This is the way *I* use the verb pong. When I introduce myself,
I say, {charghwI' mupong tlhInganpu', 'ach *Will* mupong
tera'nganpu'.} Meanwhile, I translate that as "Klingons call me
charghwI', but Terrans call me Will," and in this case, it is
not really so much an indirect object as an example of
apposition. In truth, the verb needs two objects. I justify my
use of it to say that if it is acceptable to do as we do on
this list and point the prefix at the indirect object while
placing an explicit noun as the direct object, BECAUSE KLINGON
DOES NOT ALWAYS DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF OBJECTS,
then using two different objects (direct or otherwise) with
pong is not all that weird.
Meanwhile, I would still feel a lot more comfortable with this
construction confirmed by Okrand, rather than simply claim that
I have figured it out.
> tlhIyQa
>
charghwI'
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