tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 25 08:35:36 1997

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Fwd: Re: be'pu' loDpu' je'



On Wed, 24 Dec 1997 12:40:54 -0800 (PST) L M Stapp 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >        toH, laDmeH ngeDqu' ghItlhvam. juH HolwIj muqaw. :-)) 
> ----
> SoHvaD ngeD 'e' mumermoHbe'.  *Portugal*ngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISov.
> *Brasil*Daq yIn HochHom juppu'wI'.  rut Holmey 'e' majatlh.

Okay, I'll admit I can't quite tell who wrote the first sentence 
and who wrote the second. I'm always happy to see Lisa writing. 
Meanwhile, whoever wrote the response has a little bit more work 
to do and as BG, even if not really asked, I feel somewhat 
obligated to respond.. 

Let's look at <SoHvaD ngeD 'e' mumermoHbe'.> If we don't think 
about it too much, it appears to say, "It does not surprise me 
that it is easy for you." That's a perfectly valid English 
sentence. Unfortunately, that is not quite what the Klingon 
accomplishes saying.

Let's just look at {'e' mumermoHbe'}. The vague "it" as subject 
brings stress to some, but laying that aside, we have two 
objects here. {mer} means "surprise", not "be surprised", so if 
we assume the first person object implied with the prefix is the 
indirect object, what it really means is: "It does not cause me 
to surprise that."

{SoHvaD ngeD} is fine. {*Portugal*ngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISov.} 
is fine. I have a small suggestion for {*Brasil*Daq yIn HochHom 
juppu'wI'.} {Dab} is a better verb here than {yIn}.

{rut Holmey 'e' majatlh} has a couple small problems. It needs to
lose the {'e'}, since there is no previous sentence to which it 
should refer. Also, since you are saying "We speak languages" and
not "We said, 'languages'", you want to use the prefix that 
includes third person object. {rut Holmey DIjatlh.}

I do hope no one is offended by these corrections on a non-KLBC 
post. It's just that beginners will read this and I feel like I 
need to make it clear what is correct, when I can determine it 
(in my imperfect way).

charghwI', taghwI' pabpo' ru'
Temporary Beginner's Grammarian, December 20-30




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