tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 07 09:55:49 1997

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Re: Analysis of new Skybox cards

At 04:58 PM 7/4/97 -0700, Qov wrote:
>& > lab Qob:
>& > & {beyHom bey bey'a' jachtaH latlh tlhInganpu'.}
>& > & "The other Klingons cry out small howls, howls, great howls." 
>& > & This is mega-weird.
>& > 
>& > Sure, just as there ought to be an 'and' in the English.
>& > Writing in any language often breaks the rules, and if it's clear, the 
>& > writer gets away with it.
>&
>& The thing is, it *isn't* clear (at least to me) without the English
>& translation. It may be blasphemy, but this looks like a "hindsight"
>& word (well, hindsight noun phrase).
>
>Hmmm, well when I read it I was waiting for a verb <bey> to go with 
>the noun, so first I saw a major howl howling a little howl, but as 
>soon as I hit jachtaH, that had to be the main verb, so I backed up 
>and made all three beymey into nouns. I think it's just the 
>unfamiliarity of the word that gives you pause.  Try the same 
>construction with words you know well:
>
>tengchaH vI'elDI' ghom'a' vIlegh.  qevchuq tlhInganpu' vulqanganpu' 
>verenganpu' tera'nganpu' ... nImbuS wej rur!
>
>(Yeah, yeah ... try it with words *you* know well, how should I know 
>what they are?) The elipsis is unnecessary, but the construction does 
>imply a continuity, that there are more than actually listed, that 
>the full range with the je on the end has been elided. 

Actually, I think ghunchu'wI' got it right with his earlier post in which
he quoted the maxim from TKW about being born, becoming a warrior and dying.
When the conjunction is absent, it implies a succession of events or
objects.  When a conjunction is present, it implies simultaneity.  Your
example above to me implies that _first_ Klingons, _next_ Vulcans, next
Ferengi, etc. crowded around.  Adding {je} would mean they all did it
at once.  To make another example, I'd say

    puyjaqHom puyjaq puyjaq'a' moj Hov
        The star became an ever bigger nova

    puyjaqHom puyjaq puyjaq'a' je moj Hov
        The star(s) became novas of all sizes.

I like the non-English feel of this; I could imagine sentences in Klingon
which are almost untranslatable into English.


> - Qov
>

-- ter'eS


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