tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Dec 08 11:48:30 1996

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Re: mu'tleghmey

ja' QetlhIS:
>"klingon primer":       tlhIngan wo' paq'a'

Why do you want to imply that a "primer" is more than just a book?
It's usually a simple introduction to a subject.  {paq'a'} sounds
like something much more important or impressive, like the Bible or
an encyclopedia.

>law' ngo'bogh tlhIngan wo' paq'a' 'ay'mey'e' vIwoDpu' 'e'.
><I have thrown many of the old primer sections away>.

It look like you're trying to say something like "The sections of
the primer which are old are many; I have thrown them away."
The pronoun {'e'} doesn't work like this.  It always refers to the
previous sentence itself, not to the subject of that sentence.  You
can use the pronoun {bIH} to refer to "them", meaning the sections.
(As the object of {woD}, it would have to come *before* the verb.)

You could also make the entire first sentence a relative clause with
{-bogh}, but that would make for some ugly nested clauses.  I think
you can get rid of that problem by using {ngo'} adjectivally after
{'ay'mey'}, remembering to transfer the type 5 noun suffix {-'e'} to
the adjectival verb.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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