tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 01 16:25:08 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: "nuqneH" Sajatlh
jatlh Marian Schwartz <[email protected]>:
> vagh) To Captain Krankor: I'd like to produce some backing from a real
> language for your '"-vo'" trick'. I study German, although right now it's
> pretty elementary. In German, "some of them" is "ein paar von ihnen," which
> literally means "some from them." "von" means "from", [...]
No, it doesn't.
Since prepositions are used in highly idomatic ways (at least in IE
languages), translating them on their own and not as part of a
particular idiom is questionable. That said...
In German, "von" sometimes indicates an origin ("from"), but it is also
used to express a possessive relationship ("of"), where <A "von" B> is
equivalent to <genitive(B) A>. In the example you give, it's a
possessive. "Some of them" -> "einige von ihnen" could be rephrased as
"ihrer einige".
--
Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber [email protected]
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.
Latest item on my review page: Greg Egan, _Distress_.