tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 26 12:05:42 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: law'/puS (was: KLBC. First attempt)

Irene Gates (T'Lark) writes:
>ghunchu'wI'vo':
>> The law'/puS comparitive construction works only with verbs
>> "expressing a quality or condition".
>SuStelvo':
>> When chosing the verb of law'/puS sentence, you must choose a stative verb.
>> As Okrand says on TKD p. 70, "Any verb expressing a quality or condition may
>> fit into the Q slot."
>
>What exactly is a quality or condition?

A "quality or condition" is something that just "is".  Nothing really
"happens" as part of a stative verb.  Examples of stative verbs include
{jeH} "be absent-minded", {poS} "be open", and {tuj} "be hot".  You might
have noticed a pattern -- they all seem to be translated with the English
word "be" as part of their definition.  There is another pattern as well;
there don't seem to be any stative verbs that have an obvious object.  If
you try to put an object in a sentence with a stative verb, you wind up
with something like "?He is happy it" or "?they are green him."  It just
doesn't work.  The only thing involved with a stative verb is the subject
of the verb.

>For example, does expectation qualify
>as a condition?  (It certainly doesn't seem dynamic.)

While "expectation" perhaps might qualify as a condition, it is a noun.
I consider the verb "expect" to be describing an action, not a state.
And one expects *something*; there is both a subject and an object.

>  Can we say:
>  meQtaHvIS veS, SoH loS law' Hoch latlhpu' loS puS.
>  While the war burned, you waited more than all the others.

*I* can't say it, at least not with a straight face.  It doesn't make
sense to me, either in Klingon or in English, I'm afraid.  Does the phrase
"waited more than" refer to waiting longer?  Waiting more intensely?  It's
not at all clear to me.  And how does war "burn"?  I suppose it's a poetic
image, but without more context for the "style" of writing it doesn't sit
very well with me.

>(This was offered as a suggestion for a poem I'm translating into Klingon,
>and I
>like the words, but I'm not at all sure about the grammar.)

I'm not really sure about the words, but I *am* sure about the grammar.
It's not correct.

-- ghunchu'wI'

Back to archive top level