tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 16 16:18:55 1997
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Re: mu'tlheghmey Qatlh
- From: "Neal Schermerhorn" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: mu'tlheghmey Qatlh
- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 19:22:50 -0400
ghItlh Qov:
>> Before we celebrate our victory, we need to defeat the last enemy.
yaymajmo' maloppa' jagh Qav wIjeynIS
Because we don't know if we can celebrate something, this is the safest
translation.
>Qermaq, mu'tlheghvam DaqontaHvIS nuq Daqel SoH?
As the guards concentrated on my strange clothing, the men who were eating
in the old restaurant enjoyed the guard's confusion.
I meant to type guards', not guard's, but my translation makes that
unimportant.
SutwIj Huj lubuStaHvIS 'avwI'pu', mIS 'avwI' 'e' lutIv Qe' ngo'Daq Sopbogh
loDpu'.
The thing I dislike about your translation,
>SutwIj Huj lubuStaHvIS 'avwI'pu', Qe' ngo'Daq 'avwI' mIS'e' lutIv
>SoplI'bogh loDpu'.
is that it seems to imply that the guards were in the restaurant too. In
fact, the English gives no location for them, only for the men eating. I do
like the -lI' suffix, though it might assign too much importance to that
part of the sentence. I understand the -'e' on mIS, but its use isn't
hindsight-proof - is it "the guard's CONFUSION"?
That's why I used a sentence-as-object construction. This sets up a separate
sentence for the locative to refer to which deals only with the men.
Recasting the object "the guard's confusion" into the sentence-as-object
"The guard is confused" is key to what I was thinking as I wrote it.
The one debatable point is this - can locatives be used in a relative clause
sentence at all? This is not a "ship in which he fled" problem, but is my
translation clear? I think it is - let me know!
(As if I had to ask! :o))
Qermaq