tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 29 23:27:18 1997
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Ambiguity
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Ambiguity
- Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 02:26:47 -0400 (EDT)
Every Saturday evening we hold a Klingon language class at House Veska in
Westminster, Colorado. Last lesson I had written up the following two
sentences:
De' potlh ghaj matlh 'ej peghchu' 'oH
De' pegh Qoy valqor neH ghaH
The story of Maltz goes on.
I read the first sentence aloud. Then the class read it with me 2-3 times
for pronunciation practice. When I asked a student to translate, I received,
"Maltz had some important information and it was top secret." Now, on to the
second sentence: We went through the same procedure and I received the
translation, "Valqor wanted to hear the secret information."
As much as I had to admit that the student had made a perfect translation, I
had been expecting to hear "He wanted Valqor to hear the secret information."
I realize I could have written {De' pegh Qoy valqor neH matlh}' but, I had
assumed that the subject of the previous sentence could be replaced by a
pronoun harmlessly. Not so, ambiguity surprises and confuses!
peHruS