tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 31 22:23:15 1997

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Re: KLBC: Introduction to the Black Fleet

[email protected] on behalf of Robyn Stewart wrote:

> >> >> lutDaj 'oH lutvam'e'.
> >> >> tam logh.
> >> >> bir logh net Sov.
> >> >> chuSmo' SuvwI' yIn 'e' wIlIjlaw'
> >> >It took me a minute to parse this, but it's very good!
> >> 
> >> I thought it an error. If you translate it literally you can come 
> >> up with: "Because a warrior's life is noisy we forget it." I think 
> >> it is the noiselessness of space Hat considers we forget. But this 
> >> is a sentence-as-object construction so the "it" cannot refer to 
> >> the lines above, has to refer to "because a warrior's life is 
> >> noisy." I don't like the idea of having a sentence fragment as the 
> >> object of a sentence as object. So yIn has to be interpreted as a 
> >> verb, here. I get something like: "We seem to forget that 
> >> they/she/he/it live(s)  because a warrior/warriors is/are noisy." 
> >
> > Why can't the {'e'} refer to the previous lines? Azetbur said {'e'
> > neHbe' vavoy}, in reference to someone else's sentence.
> 
> Oh, it can refer to the preceding line, like Shakespearean characters 
> completing each other's iambic pentameter, but in this case the 
> sentence that it refers to is already there.  I accept:
> 
> tam logh
> 'e' wIlIjlaw'
> 
> It's no different from tam logh 'e' wIlIjlaw'.
> But when you actually have a sentence right before the 'e', that's 
> the sentence that is the object.

The following are single sentences:

bIr logh
net Sov
chuSmo' SuvwI' yIn 'e' wIlIjlaw'

{chuSmo' SuvwI' yIn} is a subordinate clause, not a complete sentence.  We 
could remove it and still have

bIr logh net Sov 'e' wIlIjlaw'

Which is perfectly grammatical, assuming there are no as-yet-undiscovered laws 
about having more than one Sentence As Object in a row.

Or, think of it this way:

jIlaD DaH 'e' vImev
I stop reading now.

{DaH} is the adverbial, and it's in its normal place for the second sentence.

jIlaD
DaH 'e' vImev

The bottom line is, Hat's {'e'} really IS pointing to the correct sentence.
 
-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97582.9

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