tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 28 08:40:36 1995
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Re: (n) orbit?
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: (n) orbit?
- Date: Sat, 28 Jan 95 11:40:33 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "A.Appleyard" at Jan 26, 95 4:03 am
According to A.Appleyard:
>
> Someone wrote:-
> > If we stretch just a little, we might try to use {bav} as an adjective.
> > {bav} = (v) orbit, be an orbit ** proposed extension to definition
> > Then {He bav} would do just fine without needing an entirely new word.
>
> Mark Shoulson replied:-
> > "to orbit" and "to be an orbit" are vastly different concepts. I see that
> > you're trying to get something like "bavbogh He". ...
>
> {Doy' puq} = "the child is tired", {puq Doy'} = "tired child". Thus,
> {bav Duj} = "the ship is in orbit", {Duj bav} = "ship which is in orbit".
You seem to have ignored the statement that bav means orbit,
not "be in orbit". {bav Duj} means "The ship orbits." It does
not mean, "The ship is in orbit." There are those (a definite
minority) who propose that any verb can be used adjectivally,
thus {Duj bav} means "orbiting ship", but the argument is weak
and most people don't agree that it is good form.
As one strong hint, most adjectival verbs cannot be used
transitively. You can't "be big" something. You might add
{-moH} to make it accept an object, but without {-moH} an
adjectival verb rather dependably cannot take an object. That's
one of the things that makes the structure of a Klingon
sentence so clean. If you could do it with verbs that can take
objects (like bav}, then it would get much easier to write
Klingon sentences that are so ambiguous as to be meaningless.
> This reversing of word order between these 2 constructions, plus a fair amount
> of individual verbs that <can> be used as nouns, seems to allow complimentary
> ambiguous pairs like:-
> {qum qeS} = V N "the advice governs"
> N V "a government which is advising [someone]"
This is precisely why Klingon will remain a far superior
language if the latter interpretation remains (as it currently
is) illegal. No one who really speaks Klingon would suggest
that qum qeS could possibly mean "a government which is
advising [someone]". If you think that's what it means, then
you are not paying attention.
It COULD, however, mean, "He advises the government." In fact,
I find that the most viable translation, barring context that
would explain how advice can govern.
> {qeS qum} = V N "an advice which governs"
> N V "the government is advising [someone]"
Ummm. Even by your own accounting, this is screwed up. If, as
the first example notates, qeS is a verb and qum is a noun, it
would not mean "an advice which governs". It means, "The
government advises," which is a valid sentence. The second half
is similarly reversed, and if you accept qeS as a noun and qum
as a verb, you are not understanding how Klingon words fit
together, if you are trying for "the governing advice". It
would instead mean something like, "He governs advice."
You just can't stuff a transitive verb after a noun and claim
that you are using it adjectivally. That's chaotic. It is yet
another short-sighted attempt to make it easy to begin with
English text and mindlessly follow steps to transform it into
Klingon, ignoring the resulting havoc it plays with the ability
to express thoughts clearly in Klingon so that someone else can
actually read and understand them.
charghwI'
--
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