tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 21 15:14:34 1997
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Re: Stardate
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Stardate
- Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 06:51:47 UT
[email protected] on behalf of [email protected] wrote:
> HovjajvaD wIja'chuqta'.
Personally, I don't think that {ja'chuq} is a transitive construction. I
think one confers, or several people confer, but the topic is not the object
of the verb. Besides, you've put {-vaD} on your intended object, which makes
it no longer an object.
maja'chuqta' 'ej HovpoH wIqelta'.
> mughlu'meH -Hov- -jaj- je lo'lu'taH 'e' ramqu'.
You're trying to use a verb expressing a quality as the second verb of a
Sentence As Object, and it just doesn't work. If I say {ram meq}, it means
"the reason is trivial." I cannot say *{Doch ram meq} "the reason is trivial
the thing," because we know of no possible way for {ram} to take an ojbect.
{'e'} is also an object, so {ram} doesn't work here. Essentially, you're
trying to copy English's subject as object: "it is trivial that I kill you,"
"I kill you" becomes the *subject*, and the word "it" suddenly acts like
{'e'}, not "that."
mughlu'meH <Hov> <jaj> je lo'lu'taH 'ach ramqu'.
{Hov} and {jaj} are being used to translate, but this doesn't matter.
Here, the subject of {ramqu'} can be whatever we want it to be. Klingon is
wonderfully expressive in that you can just say a verb and the sentence is
complete. If you were curious as to what the subject actually is, you could
call it {ngoDvam} or {ghu'vam} or whatever was necessary.
> *Hovjaj* lo'lu'taH 'e' pIm.
I'm not quite sure how you got here, but you have tried the same thing here as
you did above. {pIm} is "be different," a verb of quality.
> tera' DIS wavlu'ta' *into* netlh *units*.
This is a case where you need to recast.
tera' DIS wavlu'ta'. wa'netlh mI'mey moj.
The Earth year has been divided. It becomes 10,000 numbers.
See TKD 5.2 on how to use {netlh}.
> After all that discussion about stardate I believe that it is not important
> to include the words Star and Date into the translation. Using the
_stardate_
> is just a different way of telling time by dividing the year in ten thousand
> units. Since stardate was "invented" by the UFP, in Klingon it could be
> something like *'ejyo' poH* or *DIvI' poH*, meaning "the federation's time".
It's certainly possibly. It's virtually *impossible* that the Klingons happen
to have a similar stardate system which matches up in time with the
Federation's. Since the event is dated in Federation time by Federation
authorities, the card's text is obviously based upon information from those
authorities.
> (maybe we should leave this to SuStel, when he comes back)
BG, memorizer of Klingon music, the stardate guy, you name it . . .
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97553.1