tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 28 10:00:43 1998
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Re: Ke'Plak
ghunchu'wI' has very good points here.
I do not agree that "we've been down this path before."
Different arguments have been made with varying degrees of
clarity and focus. This one is the best I've heard yet. I do
not believe I've heard this argument stated this well with this
specific focus before.
There is a reason that I argue with the blanket statement,
"Passive Voice and {-lu'} are not at all the same thing," is
that I've seen at least one person use this as a justification
for NEVER translating {-lu'} as passive voice, preferring to
stick to very stilted "One Xs Y" kinds of wording. I believe
this is not a good practice.
I agree that {-lu'} on an intransitive verb is not like Passive
Voice and I agree that Passive Voice which identifies the
subject (as in "I was hit by the ball") is not the same thing
as {-lu'}.
Meanwhile, most of the time, neither of these are the case.
Most of the time English Passive Voice and the Klingon {-lu'}
are good translations for each other. I believe that it is a
mistake to avoid using this tool out of some misguided
principle that since they are not in all cases identical, they
should not be equated under any circumstances.
The majority of the time, they ARE the same. Deal with it.
There are many things that don't always completely mesh between
English and Klingon. Look at the Question As Object mess where
people try to use the wrong grammatical tools to build a
relative clause. In English, the wording is very similar for
relative clauses as it is for Sentence As Object, if you use
question words as relative pronouns. Unfortunately, Klingon
doesn't USE question words as relative pronouns because Klingon
doesn't HAVE any relative pronouns.
We learn where the boundaries are between things that map to
English grammar and things that don't and we use the best tool
available to us in each circumstance. Don't kill the link
between {-lu'} and Passive Voice just because it doesn't work
in a significant minority of cases which can clearly be
determined and excluded.
charghwI' 'utlh
According to Alan Anderson:
>
> ja' charghwI':
> >After thinking about this a LOT, I've decided to myself that the
> >only real difference between the passive voice and {-lu'} is
> >that the English passive voice has a mechanism for indicating
> >the subject, while the Klingon {-lu'} does not. "The officer was
> >hit," and {yaS qIplu'} are exact equivalents. Meanwhile, you can
> >say, "The officer was hit by the child," and there is no
> >equivalent translation in Klingon except {yaS qIp puq}. You have
> >to abandon {-lu'} in order to translate it.
>
> We've been down this path before, and you keep forgetting that in
> Klingon, {-lu'} works just as well on verbs which lack objects, but
> English passive voice breaks down. Let's turn your argument around:
>
> "The food was eaten" and {Soj Soplu'} are exact equivalents.
> Meanwhile, you can say {Soplu'} and there is no equivalent
> translation in English except "one eats." You have to abandon
> passive voice in order to translate it.
>
> That makes two important "real differences" between them. The way I
> see it, they aren't anything like the same thing; they are two separate
> but overlapping circles. In the common area, either Klingon {-lu'} or
> English passive voice can represent the idea. But when there is a
> subject, {-lu'} doesn't work, and when there isn't an object, passive
> voice doesn't work.
>
> >{yaS qIplu'} can also be translated as "One hit the officer," or
> >"someone or something hit the officer," but these simply sound
> >awkward and do not as clearly offer the same meaning as the
> >passive voice "The officer was hit," does.
>
> Meanwhile, {qetlu'} can be easily translated only as "one runs."
>
> >So, it is true that the passive voice and {-lu'} are not exact
> >equivalents because the passive voice is more grammatically
> >versatile than {-lu'}, but in terms of translation, {-lu'}
> >almost always is best translated using English passive voice,
> >while the reverse is not always true.
>
> Think about the {qetlu'} example and reconsider your position. I
> could point to more similar examples and say that {-lu'} is more
> grammatically versatile than passive voice because it works on
> intransitive verbs. The truth is that neither is a subset of the
> other.
>
> -- ghunchu'wI'
>
>
>