tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 04 12:25:20 1996
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Re: worn out
According to [email protected]:
>
> This is getting to be like explaining a joke; it's not worth the effort.
Please recognize that the problem is not that you have
something right which we would simply recognize if we
understood your explanation. You have something wrong and
continue to try to repeat your explanation for why you think it
is right. You occasionally add new rationalizations to the
repeated explanations.
> >From"William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
> Re: Re: KLBC "Don't let the bastards get you down"
>
> >Sorry. That doesn't work. You then have two main verbs and no
> >grammatical justification for their both existing in the same
> >sentence...
>
> It has been said that many single sentences in English need two (or more)
> Klingon sentences to express them. My original intent was to to write two
> Klingon sentences; the first meaning "The bastards are wearing you out.(or
> tiring you, or saddening you)" <nIQopmoH taHqeqpu'(pagh nIDoy'moH pagh
> nI'IQmoH)> The second sentence was to mean "Don't allow them!"
Well, the problem is that you chose to use punctuation, yet you
didn't place any between what you are now calling two
sentences. The only time we know that we can do that is with
the Sentence As Object construction, which without the second
verb being a verb of speaking or {neH} requires {'e'} as the
bridge, which is what we keep explaining and you keep rejecting.
> <taHqeqpu'>is not the subject of the second sentence it is the antecedent of
> the pronoun, "them". So I was not guilty of making a two verb sentence,
> though it may look that way.
Since you didn't put any periods between what you are now
calling two sentences, I suggest that if there is an error, you
might not wholly place it on the grammarians. What I suspect is
that you are rationalizing like crazy to cover your butt when
you are clearly wrong and too stubborn to admit it.
It is okay to be wrong now and then. We all do it from time to
time. No sweat. That's what the Replacement Proverbs were
created for. Just admit that you screwed up and move on.
Developing new rationalizations for why your mistake was not
really a mistake is not helping you with the language.
> Re: KLBC "Don't let the bastards get you down"
> by "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
>
> >I agree that "Stop the bastards from abrading you," misses the
> >point, but I don't think anyone was suggesting replacing
> >{yIchaw'Qo'} with {yImev}. Your last suggestion, however, is
> >total gibberish. The {-'egh} indicates that the subject is the
> >object and Klingon grammar states that you place the
> >subject/object in the subject position. It's like the
> >difference between saying, "I wash myself" and saying, "I am
> >washed by myself." The latter is not Klingon.
>
> >So, your last suggestion does not make more sense of the
> >action. It makes no sense AT ALL.
>
> I went out on a limb on this one and it broke. Ouch! What I was trying to say
> was, "Don't let yourself.", meaning don't allow yourself to be worn down,
> much the way a therapist might say to a client, "Don't let yourself play
> their games."
> Finally Mark E. Shoulson tells me to use QopmoH. He is right.
It looks like you got caught up in an idiomatic use of a phrase
in English. The error is similar to the first one, in that you
are trying to apply the verb {chaw'} to refer to an individual
rather than an activity.
The way I usually deal with this sort of thing is to take the
original sentence and expand it out as much as I possibly can
to explicitly say in English all that I mean. This gets me to
the thought behind what is often a sort of short-hand,
idiomatic phrasing of a sentence. I then recompress this
sentence using the other langauge.
"Don't let yourself play their games." "Do not allow yourself
the option of playing their games." "Do not allow that you
choose that you play their games." "Do not choose that you play
their games."
Simplest:
Qujchaj tIQujQo'.
You can use {Qujmeychaj} if you like, though that is an
unnecessary redundency in Klingon, since {tI-} tells you that
it is plural and Klingon does not require the plural suffix,
especially in cases like this where it is indicated through
other cues.
More explicit:
Qujmeychaj DaQujchoH 'e' yIchaw'Qo'.
If you want to focus on the idea of self dicipline implied in
the original:
Qujmeychaj DaQujchoH 'e' DawIv 'e' yIchaw'Qo'.
If, instead, you wish to focus on the angle that you have other
choices than to play their games, then:
Qujmeychaj DaQujchoH 'e' yIwIvQo'.
There is no way to fit {yIchaw'eghQo'} into this sentence,
since the role of object gets eaten by the {-'egh} suffix. The
rule on the use of {-'egh} explicitly states that you can only
use the "no object" verb prefix, and since {yI-} can either
take an object or not, we'd have to interpret it to take no
object.
This is the root of our problem trying to say something like
"We discuss tribbles." Our verb for "discuss" is {ja'chuq},
which similarly uses a suffix that does not allow an object.
It's one of those little land mines Okrand left for us and has
not, as yet, chosen to offer advice on how to work around it.
> In conclusion, I'm a little disappointed that this is not a question of
> style. Most of the comments said that I had to be referring to the action
> and not the taHqeqpu'. I still disagree with this . If my two sentences
> were <nunIS taHqeqpu' yIchaw'Qo'>, I don't think there would be a problem.
This would be no more allowable than your first example. Again,
you have two complete sentences jammed together with no
punctuation and no grammatical justification for their both
existing within one sentence. Again, we can only do that in the
case of the Sentence As Object construction, requiring {'e'}.
> Feeling the heat,but not leaving the kichen,
> tIm
I remember when I had a similar difficulty understanding
adjectival use of verbs. I was very stubborn, and when the
light finally dawned, I felt a little stupid. There are some
truths about the language happening here that you do not seem
to be catching on to.
Each sentence can have one and only one main verb. Pairs of
sentences expressing what we express in one sentence in English
either need to be clearly stated with punctuation separating
them as two sentences, or they need to be in the form of a
Sentence As Object construction.
Also, verbs like {chaw'} can only take as objects some sort of
action or process or event. It makes no sense to apply them to
individuals. You do not permit a person. You permit a person to
DO something. A person doing something is a sentence, not a
noun. When you are using a sentence as a noun in an object
role, this is called the Sentence As Object construction and
there is an explicit rule about how to do this in Klingon. You
are not following that rule.
One of your rationalizations also focuses on the use of a noun
{taHqeqpu'} instead of the verb {nIDoy'moH}. Remember that part
of the alienness of Klingon exists in order to show us things
about English. I never realized how noun-centric English was
until I saw how verb-centric Klingon is. To speak Klingon, you
have to shift your mindset to this verb-centric grammar and
follow these rules, willing to detach yourself from conventions
of English and other Terran langauges.
Instead, you are choosing to speak your own personal dialect
which is gibberish to anyone speaking the language created by
Marc Okrand, which is what the rest of us are speaking on this
list.
charghwI'
--
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