tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 12 19:57:51 1996

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Re: KLBC: qoH jIH



Tony Pierce writes:
>How do you express tenses like in the sentence
>"If I had known it was a trap I wouldn't have gone."?

This "hypothetical" (or "subjunctive" or "irrealis") meaning is not
easy to do in Klingon.  My usual trick for dealing with an idea like
this is to turn it inside out, upside down, and backwards all at once:

"I went only because I did not know it was a trap."

It has almost the same meaning as the original problematic phrasing.

vIjonlu' net nab 'e' vISovbe'mo' neH jIjaH.

-- ghunchu'wI'




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