tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 16 06:43:07 1996
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Re: KLBC: It's been so long...!
According to Alan Anderson:
>
> PaulM writes:
> > "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."
> >1. muHoH 'e' lujbogh vay' OR:
> > muHoHbe'bogh vay'
>
> I don't like the way the first one tries to use {luj} transitively.
> The second one seems perfectly to capture the meaning "something
> which does not kill me."
While I agree about the oddness about using {luj} transitively,
I think something is lost by simply saying that if something
does not kill me, it makes me stronger. Pluto does not kill me.
Does Pluto make me stronger? The rings of Saturn do not kill
me...
The lost meaning is that the things which make me stronger are
those beings or events which ATTEMPT to kill me and fail, so
{luj} was a good element, if poorly used. Here's two
possiblilities:
First, good meaning, but controversial syntax:
muHoSmoH muHoH 'e' lujmoHbogh vay''e'.
Slightly weaker meaning, but simpler syntax:
reH muHoSmoHpu' muHoHta'be'bogh vay'.
The problem with the first one is that in Klingon the Sentence
As Object construction is actually two separate sentences, so I
doubt that it would be legal to use such a beast as a relative
clause within another sentence. This is almost certainly a very
poor excuse for Klingon grammar, though it could probably be
understood by most Klingon speakers.
The point of the second one is that the {-ta'be'} on {muHoH}
saying that they have not accomplished killing me implies a
failed goal of killing me, and it is in fact only those things
which have failed to kill me which have caused me to be strong,
and since aspect is tense independent, that also implies that
in the future, anything which will have failed to kill me will
have caused me to be strong.
> >AND: 2. HoSwIj Dub 'oH OR:
> > HoSwIj DubmoH 'oH.
>
> Depending on how you interpret {Dub}, one of these is appropriate.
> I'd have chosen {ghur} instead, though.
>
> >The final construction I prefer is:
> >
> >muHoH 'e' lujbogh vay' HoswIj DubmoH 'oH.
> >
> >Could I have your expert advice, please?
Well, even if there were no problem with {luj}, you have a pile
of words here with no single sentence syntax. If we let the
{luj} stuff slide for the moment (and only for the moment), you
begin with "Something which fails to kill me..." which is
apparently the same thing as the {'oH} which is the subject of
the sentence, but it otherwise has no grammatical reason to be
in the sentence, so why is it at the beginning?
ghunchu'wI' points this out, but doesn't quite notice that what
you will have then constructed would be similar to the mess I
made in the first example. You combine the relative clause and
the Sentence As Object, which might work if the relative noun
were object of the main verb, but as subject, we have this
problem of sucking a second sentence into the middle of the
main sentence. This screws up the word order badly enough that
there may be no way to recover within the syntax rules given by
Okrand. There is certainly nothing in canon I can remember to
allow this.
> First, {muHoH 'e' luj} doesn't look right to me at all. {luj} "fail"
> certainly seems intransitive to me. If it *were* transitive, I'd expect
> it to mean more like "fail a test" or "lose a competition". Your other
> thought of {muHoHbe'bogh vay'} seems much better to me.
>
> Second, the word {vay'} is the subject of the verb {Dub}, and subjects
> come *after* verbs. The phrase {muHoHbe'bogh vay'} ought to go where
> you've put the word {'oH}.
>
> The final sentence as I would say it: {HoSwIj DubmoH muHoHbe'bogh vay'}
> "something which does not kill me causes my strength to increase."
Again, this is syntactically correct, but vay' could indeed be
referring to the rings of Saturn, being something which does
not kill me. Do they improve my strength?
> >{Regarding part 2, I don't really understand what is meant by
> > 'transitivity' as it applies to verbs, but I have a feeling it
> > is an issue that applies in this case. Can you please help me
> > out on this?}
>
> A "transitive" action is one that is done "to" someone or something else.
> Examples: take a sword; activate machinery; carry a pie. "Intransitive"
> actions are something that someone or something just "does", without any
> other object being involved. Examples: walk; be irritable; fall. Most
> transitive verbs can be used intransitively: breathe [air]; drink [water].
> Problematic verbs such as "improve" and "increase" can be used either way
> in english, but in languages with a specific "causative" indicator like
> Klingon's {-moH}, one would expect them to be used in only one way. My
> preference is to use them intransitively, since {-moH} can get the other
> meaning out of them easily. I'd be likely to say "my knowledge improves"
> and "the temperature increases" instead of "I improve my knowledge" and
> "the sun increases the temperature." But it could easily be the other
> way around, with {-'egh} used to reflect the action back at the subject
> of the sentence.
maj.
> -- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj
charghwI'
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