tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 28 15:51:27 1998
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Re: prepositional phrases
Avraham Chapman:
>As a learning exercise, I've been translating Doctor Seuss' 'The Cat and
>the Hat'. Unfortunately, he uses a lot of prepositional phrases and I
>don't know how to do them. Specifically, I'm looking for 'in the NOUN'
>where NOUN = any noun.
Voragh:
>Your first example - "in the NOUN where NOUN" - is a variant of the
>infamous "ship in which I fled" problem, which has been frequently and
>inconclusively debated in this forum. You may have to split this into two
>sentences. There is no law which says that one sentence in English cannot
>become two (or more) sentences in Klingon, or vice versa.
Qermaq:
>I think you misread this, Voragh. "looking for 'in the NOUN' where NOUN =
>any noun." "In the ship" is <DujDaq>. "In the leg" is <'uSDaq>.
Aha, you're right. I thought Avraham was trying something a bit more
complicated. If I understand him now, what he wants to say is just "The
Cat in the Hat". As it happens, this is STILL a variant of "the ship in
which I fled" problem: i.e. "the cat which/who is in the hat". Luckily, in
this case there is a way to avoid the problem:
mIv tuQbogh vIghro'
the Cat in the Hat
("the v'gro [who is] wearing a helmet")
as in:
QImmey SuD targh Ha'DIbaH je SoplI' mIv tuQbogh vIghro'
The Cat in the Hat is eating green eggs and ham.
("The v'gro wearing a helmet is eating green eggs and targ meat.")
But since Avraham didn't say what he was trying to translate, this is only
a guess until he provides more information.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons