tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 29 19:05:41 1997
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Mark's comments, Sonnet 123
- From: Nick Nicholas <[email protected]>
- Subject: Mark's comments, Sonnet 123
- Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 14:05:48 +1100
- Organization: Ling & App Ling, Uni of Melbourne
Said ~mark:
>>jIHvaD Dojbe' 'ej Dal vaS'a'lIj motlh
>>It not be impressive for me and it is usual your great hall is be bored
>>chenmoHpu'bogh HoS chu'. reH chavmey ngo'
>>The new power which was formed. Always old achievements.
>I had said the head noun of the relative clause is the power; it seems it
>should really be "the usual great hall(s) which your new power has built
>are not impressive to me and are boring" (E: "Thy pyramids built up with
>newer might / To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,")
Yes; the ambiguity exists in Klingon, and I couldn't readily work a
disambiguating topic suffix in metrically.
Nick-style error on SutmoH = tuQmoH noted (he says embarrassedly; not the first
time I've confused the part of speech of a Klingon word, either...)
>>luSutqa'moH neH bIH; ngo'Ha', 'ach notlh.
>>They only causes <Sut> again, very old, but it is obsolete
>"ngo'Ha'" here seems to be more in the "wrongly" sense. Not truly old, old
>wrongly. Not old but just obsolete (E: "They are but dressings Of a former
>sight:")
I actually intended the "un-old" meaning: "they may be brand-spanking new, but
they're obsolete nonetheless.) Of course, we have no way of disambiguating
between the two meanings of -Ha', although I suspect the "wrongly" meaning makes
more sense with agentive verbs.
>>'ach DaH jI'Ip, 'ej batlh not mu'woQvetlh lIj.
>>but now I swear, and it forgets that political power never with honor.
>I wonder why "lIj" is in third person. "mu'woQvetlh" refers to the oath,
>apparently (E: This I do vow and this shall ever be,)
lIj is there for metrical convenience, but can be excused as clipped Klingon.
mu'woQ is indeed the oath, or more precisely the power of the oath; 'IpwoQ might
be clearer, but I think mu'woQ is recoverable without being a hindsight-word.
--
Kai san swqhkan t' akriba piota, N N O n.nicholas@linguistics.
kai san plhsiaze pia h wra tesseres, I I L unimelb.edu.au http://
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