tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 24 04:42:34 1996
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Re: KLBC: How long have we been learning?
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: How long have we been learning?
- Date: Fri, 24 May 96 07:42:30 EDT
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 May 1996 22:14:35 -0700. <[email protected]>
[email protected] writes:
\ We know how to ask {How much fuel do we have?}
\ How do we ask {How long have we been learning Klingon?}
If we were to subcategorize the {chuvmey}, {'ar} is, besides a question
word, an adjective. You can say "How many X" or "How much X", where X
is a noun. In general, we don't know how to say "How [much] X", where
X is a concept expressed by a stative verb. I would look for other
ways of casting each sentence.
If {'ar} could be used as an adverb, we would be in good shape; you
could just say {'ar V N}? Since it's not, if you want a general
mechanism, you probably have to nominalize the verb. This is generally
regarded as a Bad Thing.
\ {How long have we been learning Klingon?}
This one translates nicely to a quantitative question:
qaStaHvIS poH 'ar tlhIngan Hol wIghoj?
\ {How well-cooked is the food?}
I suspect that in most cases where you would ask this question, a
simple {vutchu''a' Soj?} would do the trick. If you really care about
exactly how cooked the food is, then you can do that aforementioned Bad
Thing:
{vutchu'ghach 'ar ghaj Soj?} "How much well-cookedness does the food have?"
But how would you answer that question?
\ {How red is the blood?}
Again, how would you answer the question, once asked? Maybe you
could make it multiple choice instead of asking for a range:
{Doq'a' 'Iw? Doq? DoqHa'?}
--
Mark J. Reed | http://www.sware.com
Email: [email protected] | HP Internet/System Security Lab
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