tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 02 10:18:03 1998
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Re: KLBC: Q on {-meH} (was: long weekend with MO)
According to [email protected]:
>
> 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.
They look less than ideal to me, but certainly not dreadful.
I've seen dreadful on this list before, and I like to use the
word sparingly enough that it really MEANS something when I use
it.
> 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 see absolutely nothing accomplished here, except for mapping
this to the English fascination with the verb "to be". By the
same logic, you'd change {tIn Duj} to {Duj tIn 'oH}. Do you
really think this is an improvement?
> 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.
Now, we are getting close to disgusting.
Qatlh DaSamlu'meH Qu'. The task of finding you is difficult.
Literally: "The in-order-that-one-finds-you task is difficult."
For the second one, I'm oddly drawn to a different approach:
chobelmoH DaneHchugh ngeD Qu'. If you want to please me, the
job is easy.
It still works as {ngeD vIbelmoHlu'meH Qu',} however.
I think the {-moH} draws me to a casting that loads fewer
affixes on a single verb.
> I like this alternative the best of these three. It's long but clear.
jIQoch. Piling a relative clause onto a purpose clause is less
than elegant. It is also very easy to read this word order to
suggest that the had noun of the relative is the subject of the
{-meH} verb. Parsing these sentences is a challenge involving a
long pause while you decide how the head nouns relate to the
purpose clause. Are they subjects, or are they nouns modified
by the {-meH} verb? The only way to tell is to try both
interpretations and find out which one makes more sense. This
leads to the likelihood that someone will come up with an
example that is hidiously (or hilariously) ambiguous.
Don't go there.
> 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.
That is a somewhat unusual, though not necessarily wrong use of
the verb {tu'}. I probably would have used {Har}, or avoided
the personalization altogether by using {-law'} on {ngeD}. It
keeps folding in on itself until I get:
ghaytan QInlIj yajHa'lu'.
To say that something is easy to misinterpret is to say that it
is likely to be misinterpreted, and Klingon has the adverbial
{ghaytan}, but it has no adverbial to say "easily", so I think
a Klingon speaker would be drawn to use the tool he has. All
this "I find that..." stuff is not very Klingon in nature. The
langauge has tools to express certainty, which guides one
towards expressing ones personal degree of certainty via those
tools rather than, "I find that" or "I believe that" or "My
opinion is" or "From MY perspective..."
pIj QInlIj yajHa'lu'law'.
> 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.
I'm speechless.
chaq QInlIj yajlaHlaw' vay' 'ach Qatlhqu' Qu'vam. Qatlh, 'ach
ram. yIbuSHa'.
> What does everyone else think?
>
> --jey'el
charghwI'