tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 06 18:02:42 1997

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RE: KLBC: ..."with honor and strength"

jatlh mayq:

> How would I go about saying something like "Kahless guides Klingons with
> honor and strength". I tried:
> 
> HoSna' batlhna' je tlhInganpu' Dev qeylIS
> 
> But that means Kahless guides Klingons OF honor and strength... and that's
> still an idiom, isn't it?

Don't just try to plug in <N2 of N1> without thinking of what you're saying.  
This form is essentially possessive.  If you can say "strength and honor's 
Klingons," then it's okay.  But you can't.

What we have here is a "with" preposition, and these give people problems.  
Well, the "with honor" part isn't too hard; just use the adverbial {batlh} 
"with honor."  But what about "with strength"?  You *might* try {pe'vIl}, but 
I think you'd be losing some of the meaning.

Well, then, how about splitting the sentence up a bit?  No reason one English 
sentence has to map to one Klingon sentence!  Try this on for size:

batlh tlhInganpu' Dev qeylIS.  HoS ghaH DevtaHvIS.
Kahless guides Klingons with honor.  He is strong as he guides them.

This is just one way you could say this; I'm already starting to think of 
more.  Give it a try!

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97180.1

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