tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 02 09:01:51 1998

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: KLBC: Q on {-meH} (was: long weekend with MO)

First and second persons can, in English, enter into the same 
kind of construction as "the probe is difficult to hit".  
Can we say in Klingon:

{SammeH bIQatlh.}    You're hard to find.
{belmoHmeH jIngeD.}       I'm easy to please.          

??   I rather hope not; they look dreadful to me.  
We can recast less concisely, with "be a person":

{SammeH nuv Qatlh SoH.}    You're a hard person to find.
{belmoHmeH nuv ngeD jIH.}       I'm an easy person to please.        

I don't like this much either.  It splits up the natural units 
"You're a person" and "hard to find",  "I'm a person" and "easy to please".
We could recast even more long-windedly, with a relative clause:  

{SammeH Qatlhbogh nuv SoH.}    You're a person who's hard to find.
{belmoHmeH ngeDbogh nuv jIH.}       I'm an person who's easy to please.       

I like this alternative the best of these three.  It's long but clear.

A different point:
These examples are all of the form "X is Y to Z".  Naturally, the main verb of
the sentence might be something else, with this same construction used non-
predicatively to modify a noun:  

{jabbI'IDlIj vIlaDtaHvIS yajHa'meH ngeDbogh mu'tlhegh vItu'.}
Reading your message, I noticed a sentence that was easy to misinterpret.

I think this is easier to read than 
{jabbI'IDlIj vIlaDtaHvIS yajHa'meH mu'tlhegh ngeD vItu'.} 
Reading your message, I noticed an easy sentence to misinterpret.

What does everyone else think?
  
--jey'el

Back to archive top level