tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 14 09:21:18 1997
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Re: KLBC: semiotic nonsense for beginners
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: semiotic nonsense for beginners
- Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:21:12 -0500 (EST)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message fromMarc Ruehlaender on Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:39:09 -0800 (PST))
>Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:39:09 -0800 (PST)
>From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
>
>Lawrence writes to us:
>>
>> If this doesn't make sense to you, imagine how my students feel
>> in the morning!
>>
>indeed, I think you might not quite have meant what you've written..
>
>>
>> 'ov qeylIS molor je.
>> lujbe'chugh qeylIS Qap'a' molor?
>this seems to be more of a logical problem than a linguistic one...
>
>nIvchugh wa', Qap 'ej luj latlh.
Wow! A wonderfully ambiguous sentence. Quite correct, but it took me two
or three readings to get the right meaning. I had read: "nIvchugh wa: (Qap
'ej luj) latlh", i.e. "If one is superior, the other one wins and loses."
A correct reading, but not the one meant. I think the writer meant
"nIvchugh wa': Qap. 'ej (luj latlh)." "If one superior, he/she (i.e. the
superior one) wins, and the other loses."
There's nothing wrong with this sort of ambiguity; it happens quite a bit
in many languages. Nor is this a criticism of HomDoq's style; all's well.
Maybe it's my training in Jewish Bible commentaries, but I can see all
sorts of wonderful interpretive discussions and debates among Klingons
about some of their old texts...
~mark