tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 18 20:32:59 1997
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Re: Question as object
>Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 17:03:46 -0800 (PST)
>From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark E. Shoulson <[email protected]>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
>Date: Monday, December 15, 1997 1:25 AM
>Subject: Re: Question as object
>
>>Surely you don't think Klingons can go blabbing secret information all the
>>time! Klingons know the value of secrecy better than most: De' pegh
>>Sovlu'DI' chaq Do'Ha'.
>
>True. It is probably not as bad as I am making it out to be.
It's all too easy to say "but a Klingon wouldn't say that..." The fact is
that as folks, they need to say most of the things we say all the time.
It's almost silly that I had to resort to military terms just to
demonstrate that Klingons *would* find it useful to say "I know when Fred
is coming to visit".
Or maybe not... :) Now that I'm thinking more about it, maybe there would
be an idiomatic/cultural reluctance to use this sort of "half-statement"
unless absolutely necessary. Language and culture are SUCH complex things,
aren't they?
>>Think how many times you know that a general knows
>>the plans for an attack
>
>HIvmeH nab vISov.
I hadn't intended these to be challenges for indirect-question rephrasing,
just examples of when you'd need to say them SOMEhow.
>>or the number of ships that are involved but cannot
>>say because of military secrecy.
>
>This one is harder.
>
>HIvrupbogh Dujmey vItoghpu'.
>
>HIvrupbogh Dujmey mI' vISov. (Not certain with {mI'} here. Sounds like the
>fleet has a number.)
Yeah, I ran up against this once myself, ages ago, when translating "my hat
it has three corners." I had "jejwI'" for "corner", and for the second
line, for scansion and (poor) rhyme, I was saying "mIvwI' jejwI' mI' 'oH
wej" (should have been "wej'e'", but that didn't scan). This has the same
question yours has, and also uses "wej" in an unusual way. Rather than
being a number enumerating things, or standing for "three somethings" as a
noun in its own right, it's now standing for "three" as a *number*, not as
a set of things (in Lojban terms, it's suddenly "li ci" instead of "ci
da"). I don't much like this.
>A: HIv Duj 'ar?
>B: De'vam vISov 'a qaja' net chaw'be'.
See why the term for this is "indirect question"? You have to rely on
someone to ask you this before you can say anything. Not a great way to
communicate. If I'm planning an attack, I think I'll need to say things
like "OK, now don't worry about the ships; the captain knows how many are
going to attack..." (wonder how I'd say "don't worry about how many ships
are going to attack"? Even QAO won't help, and if it did it would likely
be lousy anyway. Unless it went {?HIv Duj 'ar? 'e' DaSovbe'mo' rejmorgh
yIDaQo'}. That would be so-so, presuming QAO. Without it.... hmm... I
could do the same with {HIvbogh Duj mI'} as you had above, but that's iffy
as you yourself said. I think there's a decent way for this, though,
even without QAO).
~mark