tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 21 23:02:10 1997

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RE: KLBC: being guilty

jatlh Kontay:

> DIv lu'SolaHbe'chu'
> They are clearly not able to hide their being guilty.

No.  Let me tackle the easier problem first.

{luSo'laHbe'chu'} (notice the correct placement of the glottal stop) means 
"The perfectly cannot hide it."  {-chu'} means that an action is done 
perfectly or exactly.  That's not what you mean.

In TKD Addendum 4.2.6 we see the verb suffix {-ba'} "obviously."  This sounds 
like what you want.

luSo'laHbe'ba'
they obviously cannot hide it

Now, *what* can they not hide?  The fact that they are guilty.  We don't have 
a verb for "guilt," but we have {DIv} "be guilty."  {DIv} can mean "they are 
guilty."

So, we must use a Sentence As Object construction, detailed in TKD section 
6.2.5.  Use the pronoun {'e'} to stand for an entire sentence.  What are our 
sentences?

DIv
They are guilty.

'e' luSo'laHbe'ba'
They obviously cannot hide that.

{'e'} "that" refers to the previous sentence.  Therefore, we get

DIv 'e' luSo'laHbe'ba'
They obviously cannot hide that they are guilty.

> Since DIv is only a verb, I couldn't have said "DIvchaj lu'SolaHbe'chu'"

Right.

> But when I translate "DIV lu'SolaHbe'chu'" I literally get, "They are
> guilty they clearly can not hide it." To me it doesn't sound right without
> an "and" between "guilty" and "they"

That's just how English works.  Klingon works differently, and will sometimes 
sound funny.  Note that you aren't trying to translate word-for-word from 
English; you may lose or gain a word or two in the translation.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97472.8

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