tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 28 08:14:45 1995
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Re: KLBC: QutneS ghIth: Part 3
According to [email protected]:
>
> First, responses to the corrections, and then more story.
...
> >> 'e' 'ang mInDu'wIj 'ej 'e' legh.
>
> > You may be getting a little loose with the Sentence As Object
> > construction. I'm not sure. You want the conjunction to make
> > the two {'e'} pronouns essentially parallel. In other words,
> > both {'e'}s refer to the same previous sentence...
>
> I'm not sure you're reading this correctly. Both <<'e'>>s do *NOT* refer to
> the same sentence. I didn't think you could do that. Instead, each <<'e'>>
> refers to the sentence which preceeds it. They're nested.
In THAT case, you need to lose the {'ej}. It screws up the
second Sentence-As-Object construction. So far as we know, you
can nest this construction as long as you want (though it gets
obtuse if carried to an extreme), but you never want a
conjunction thrown in. Remember that in Klingon, a Sentence As
Object is really a pair of separate sentences. A conjunction
turns a pair of sentences into ONE sentence. This doesn't work
here.
> Okay, here's the story so far, after charghwI's latest corrections and
> recommendations...
>
> cha'Hu' tachDaq jIvem. Two days ago, I awoke in a bar.
> pay' pa'Daq paw cha' vaj. Suddenly, two warriors arrived in the
> room.
> loDnI'chaj viHoHta'. I had (deliberately) killed their brother.
> 'e' vIqaw vIleghDI'. When I saw them, I remembered that.
> Sengbej ghu'vam. This situation would surely cause trouble.
> quSDaq ba'ta' vaj cha'DIch, While the first appeared to question the
> bartender,
> chom yu'law'taHvIS wa'DIch. The second warrior sat in a chair.
Small comment. Unless he was REEEEEAAALLLY drunk, sitting
hardly seems to imply a level of accomplishment I'd associate
with the suffix {-ta'}. Also, the English translation does not
imply perfective. The verb "sat" is simple past tense. This is
implied with the time context set by the verb {yu'law'taHvIS},
so you don't need to replace {-ta'} with {-pu'}. Just drop it.
You commented that I maybe misunderstood your use of wa'DIch
and cha'DIch, but I didn't. Numbers in general either modify
nouns or stand in their place. I had recently misunderstood
this and thought they needed an explicit noun to modify. (Hey,
I make mistakes, too, OKAY?) So I'm having to go through that
whole thing over again with ordinal numbers (with {-DIch}),
since their placement is different from cardinal numbers (with
no {-DIch}). My temptation is to believe that they function
differently from cardinal numbers and so do not work so well as
nouns, but in this suspicion, I think I am wrong.
Just because that's my first gut reaction does not necessarily
make it right. I think you useage here is fine. I understood it
perfectly the first time and thought I had a problem with it,
but I was wrong.
> Hopbe' quSDaj 'ach mutu'be'. His chair was not far away, but he did not
> notice me.
> vaHDajDaq pu'wIj vIQeyHa'moH. I loosened my phaser in its holster.
As a small suggestion, you might drop {-Daj} altogether and
make the sentence a little clearer and less grammatically
distracting from the thrust of the excellent story. "I loosened
my phaser in the holster." It is at LEAST as easy to figure out
which holster this way as yours. Another alternative would be
"I loosened the phaser in my holster." I agree that less
redundency is a Klingon linguistic value.
> muHaDchoH ba'taHbogh loDnI' The brother who was sitting began to study
> me.
> machovchuq. We assessed one another.
> vIHoHlaHbej 'ej mubotlaHbe'bej. I could surely kill him and he could
> certainly not prevent it.
Here, your Klingon is clearer than your English, which could be
misinterpreted to mean that it was definitely true that he was
able to avoid preventing it. Better would be, "... and he
certainly could not prevent it." Hmmm. Even THAT is not bomb
proof. "... and he would certainly be unable to prevent it."
I actually see it as a positive sign when your Klingon is
clearer than your English. [Heh, heh]
> 'e' 'ang mInDu'wIj 'ej 'e' legh. My eyes showed it, and he saw it.*
>
> * the first "it" here refers to the preceding sentence "I could surely kill
> him and he could certainly not prevent it." The second "it" refers to the
> phrase that precedes *it*, "My eyes showed it." That's what I meant about
> the <<'e'>>s being nested. Clear?
It would be clearer in both Klingon and English if you lost
that last conjunction, thusly:
'e' 'ang mInDu'wIj 'e' legh. He saw that my eyes showed that...
Of course, this gets to be like standing between mirrors. "I
noticed that he saw that my eyes showed that I knew that I
could kill him and he couldn't stop it, and I saw that he knew
that I could kill him and he couldn't stop it, and that he knew
that I knew that he knew ..."
> Good, now, on to part three...
Great! I can hardly wait.
> jIQamchoH 'ej DaqDaj vIghoS.
> "naDev jIba' chocherghneSchugh."
Yet another interesting and unexpected twist, excellently
expressed.
> pagh jatlh vaj 'ej quS chIm vIba'ta'.
Lose the {-ta'}. This is still part of the story line, not
something that was accomplished BEFORE this point in the story
line.
> "nuq bonejneS SoH juplI' je?"
Interesting point here. The {bo-} seems to address both people
together in the second person, but {SoH juplI' je} addresses
them individually, one in the second person and one in the
third. Does anyone with more experience with languages with
distinct singular vs. plural second person pronouns want to
shed light on this?
> QIt Hagh.
> "loDnI'Hom vIghajtaH boghpu'DI' 'ach jupwI' mojta'be'."
This use of {-taH} combined with this use of {-pu'DI'} seems
odd. "As soon as he had been born, I was having a little
brother, but he has not accomplished becoming my friend." It's
a great line, a little twisted around the aspect. You seem to
want, "Ever since he was born, I've had a little brother..."
Hmmm. How about if we just add {-choH}? My problem is that the
{-pu'DI'} points to a single point on the time line, while
{-taH} is all blurry around the edges. {-choHtaH} can resolve
this.
loDnI'Hom vIghajchoHtaH boghpu'DI' 'ach jupwI' mojta'be'.
"When he had been born, I began to continuously have a little
brother, but he has not accomplished becoming my friend." This
literal translation sounds awkward, but I think the meaning
fits what you want a little better. See my point?
Some may argue about loDnI'Hom really working for "little
brother", but then, hey, some people just like to argue.
Another wording might be:
boghDI' loDnI'wI' mojpu' 'ach wej jupwI' mojta'.
I don't want to be rewriting your excellent story. Sometimes
recasting things hits me like a seizure. It is your story.
Choose whatever you like. This is just a suggestion for another
way to express the thought you seemed to be pointing toward.
> 'IQ mu'meyDaj 'ej vajvam vIvup.
> vIvupqangbe' 'ach vIvupqu'bej.
> jIDoghchoH.
> chu'wI' tu' nItlhwIj 'ej jor nachDaj.
> wIv val vIwiv'a'?
Consider the word {DuH} to reduce the redundency.
> tugh 'e' vIghoj.
Great story. Keep it flowing!
> ::to be continued..::
charghwI'
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