tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 21 07:11:59 1997

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Re: Quotable quotes

HurghwI' wrote:
[replying to me on {neH}]
> The key is the placement of only in the translation.
> After the article, and it's an adjective. Before the verb, an adverb.
> In between . . . what is it?

Also an adverb, but it applies to whatever it is that it precedes.

> Hmmm. This whole thing is kind of a moot point; The more you try to say
> "the only thing," or "it is the unique thing," or whatever, it becomes
> clear that it is an English idiom anyway.

I'm not sure I'd call it an idiom.  What it really is is an adjective
(see paraphrases) made into an adverb:

  _I only hit the child._ -- `The only thing I did was hit the child.'
  _I hit only the child._ -- `The only one whom I hit was the child.'

In English the adjective and the adverb have the same form, because we
don't say *_onlily_ (cf. _solely_ from _sole_, _uniquely_ from _unique_).
Klingon doesn't normally derive adverbs from adjectivish verbs (although
occasionally it does, eg {Do'(Ha')}), and anyway {neH} isn't so derived.

> Besides, that sentence, despite it's subject, would probably seem
> overly philosophical to a Klingon.

Then it must have looked that way to the Romans also, don't you think?

> If something is the only thing,
> then by definition it is everything, so it contradicts itself.

Well, yes.  It's a paradox (or a conundrum?), and therefore may fail
to translate into some languages.  Here's another one: `Democracy is
the best form of government, except for all the others'.  Try saying
this in a language where `best' is lit. `better than all the others'.

--'Iwvan

-- 
"mIw'e' lo'lu'ta'bogh batlh tlhIHvaD vIlIH [...]
 poH vIghajchugh neH jIH, yab boghajchugh neH tlhIH"
                                  (Lewis Carroll, "_Snark_ wamlu'")
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

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