tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 14 05:41:31 1997
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Re: Success
- From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Success
- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 15:32:58 -0800
- Organization: Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science
- References: <[email protected]>
Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> >From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
> >
> >sorry, forgot who wrote this:
> >> >> Success is taken away from the mouth of failure.[...]
> >(maybe it is because my native language is not english, but this
> >picture doesn't strike me as making much sense...
>
> English is my native language, and while "snatching victory from the
> jaws of defeat" is a nice accessible expression to me, I will agree
> with you that not one of the proposals for translating it I've seen
> so far has been really appealing.
I have no problem with the image, and I don't think it's English-specific,
either. But it does take a good word (a noun!) for `defeat' or `failure',
and I don't buy any of those that I've seen here. I'm not fond of adding
aspect suffixes and the like to root verbs merely to make them eligible
for nominalisation by {-ghach}. But what else can one do?
We're told that Klingon relies more on verbs than on nouns; it uses verbs
in many cases where English (and some other languages) would rather use
an abstract noun. Yet it has a fair number of abstract nouns, as well as
a productive (we think) strategy for their formation from suffixed verbs.
Is it believable that there is a word for `success', {Qapla'}, but none
for `failure', and a word for `victory', {yay}, but no noun for `defeat'?
Or perhaps we should wait with the translation of some things until we've
been told what is hidden behind the remark that `[i]t is not known if all
verbs can be used as nouns'.
--'Iwvan
--
"reH Sov yInej 'ej Dap yImuS, <dOstI bA mardom-e dAnA nEkO-st,
jagh val qaq law' jup QIp qaq puS" do^sman-e dAnA beh az nAdAn dOst>
(Sheikh Muslihuddin Abu Muhammad Abdullah Saadi Shirazi)
Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected], [email protected]>
Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences
Home: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria