tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 15 08:23:35 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: KLBC: Uselessness & Aiming
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: KLBC: Uselessness & Aiming
- Date: Sun, 15 Jun 97 15:21:48 UT
jatlh qarnoS:
> I wanted to say "This information is of no use/useless to me" but was unsure
> whether to use be' (not) or Ha' (undo) to negate lI' (useful, be useful), so
> I tried both:
Sometimes this is indeed a difficult choice. I tend towards using {-be'} when
possible, since {-Ha'} is an active undoing of something that was done, or
means that something was done incorrectly. Unless you mean that the
information has *become* useless (was useful before), you probably want
{-be'}. (Besides, from Conversational Klingon we have {wa'maH yIHmey lI'be'}
"10 useless tribbles.")
> mulI'be' De' This information is not useful to me.
> mulI'Ha' De' This information is useless to me.
Well, the first thing to realize is that "me" is NOT the object of this
sentence. The information is not doing anything to you. It's being some
quality FOR YOU. Let's forget about you for a moment and just concentrate on
what the information is doing.
lI'be' De'
The information is useless.
That's easy enough, right? Now, take a look through TKD pp.28-29 on the noun
suffix {-vaD}. There's the example {Qu'vaD lI' De'vam} "The information is
useful for the mission." It's very similar to what we want! Read that
section carefully.
What we want is
jIHvaD lI'be' De'
The information is useless to me. (The information is useless; I am the
beneficiary of that uselessness.)
> Also, I am unsure if I got the words the correct way around.
> Since the thing being useless is the information, I concluded that it must
> be the subject of the sentence. I hope that's correct.
Right. The sentence has no object. The subject was correct.
> I also tried translating Captain Sulu's line: "Target that explosion and
> fire"
> into Klingon and came up with:
>
> jorwI' yIQeq 'e' yIbaH
>
> I am not sure if I used the correct
In Power Klingon, we get the sentence {'otlh peng Qeq}. This shows that the
thing you aim is the weapon, not the target. "Explosion" can't be the object,
then.
What you want to do is aim *at* the explosion.
Unfortunately, we don't have a ready word for "explosion." {jorwI'} means
"explosive," not "explosion." You might say this: {jorbogh Duj} "the ship
which explodes." One *might* consider the word {jortaHghach}. It does seem
to mean "explosion."
Finally, you don't want to use {'e'} here. Read over TKD section 6.2.5
carefully to get a grasp on how this pronoun works. It's not a conjunction.
You don't "fire that you target the explosion," or anything like that. You
must simply use {'ej} or nothing.
jorbogh DujDaq yIQeq 'ej yIbaH!
jorbogh DujDaq yIQeQ! yIbaH!
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97455.6