tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 29 17:22:10 1999
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Re: KLBC: qatlh Qapbe'choH DaH De'wI'mey? :-)
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:42:40 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>
>On 27 Aug 1999 17:09:19 -0000 [email protected] wrote:
>
>> We really have to find some way, even if just slang (sanctioned, though),
>> of disambiguating {wej}. It's really exasperating. I wouldn't be
>> surprised if Klingons would say, informally, something like {*mI' wej
>> tlhInganpu' vIlegh}, even though it's ungrammatical, in case of real
>> potential for misunderstanding.
>
>Another idea for this that looks Okrandian would be to
>differentiate it with sentence fragments and other tools which
>would make the other meaning nearly impossible, thusly:
>
>tlhInganpu' vIlegh; wej tlhInganpu'.
>
>vs.
>
>tlhInganpu vInej 'ach wej vay' vIlegh.
I like it. Quite a bit.
>> >> leQmey waHmeH, jabbI'ID mach DIngeH 'e' wIwuq. jabbI'ID puS polHa' DaH.
>> >> mapIHchoH.
>> >>
>> >> Hemey lo'bogh De' DInuD.
>> >
>> >Interesting. You used the plural suffix to indicate that you are
>> >examining the paths and not the data. Clever. I've never seen
>> >this done before, but it works for me.
>>
>> For me too. Though you don't HAVE to disambiguate all the time. Even if
>> nothing in the grammar tells you the head noun, often the context will.
>
>Still, I'd hate to carelessly yell, {qama' 'uchlI'bogh 'avwI'
>yIHoH!} and then see the warrior whom I'm addressing shoot the
>guard... Consequences of this kind of sloppiness constitute good
>cause to be as unambiguous as possible.
I'd hate it too; then I'd have to kill the warrior. Anyone who would
misunderstand such an order is either irretrievably stupid or deliberately
insubordinate. Either way I wouldn't want him under my command. It wasn't
saying the order that was sloppy; the order was quite clear under the
circumstances. It was the moron who obeyed it who was sloppy.
~mark