tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 25 16:47:46 1999
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RE: RE: KLBC: double -bogh verbs
- From: "Andeen, Eric" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: RE: KLBC: double -bogh verbs
- Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 17:50:15 -0700
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:44:09 -0800 (PST) Steven Boozer
<[email protected]> wrote:
..
> De gustibus non disputandum est, of course, but this is merely pagh's own
> stylistic preference. We've seen Okrand do it both ways:
>
> romuluSngan Sambogh 'ej HoHbogh nejwI'
> Romulan hunter-killer probe
> (this device is also called a {HoHwI'} for short) KCD
jatlh charghwI':
> This example has often bothered me, but looking harder at it, I
> can see that if he had put it as {romuluSngan Sambogh nejwI' 'ej
> HoHbogh} it would have looked a lot like a probe that finds a
> Romulan and kills him. While I might personally find such a
> device highly useful, I'm afraid that would be false
> advertising, since THIS device apparently finds and kills
> KLINGONS. I suspect this awkward wording was used to try to get
> around that problem.
Actually, I think we have the same problem either way. The original is just
as ambiguous. Even the English translation (Romulan hunter-killer probe) is
at least a little ambiguous. This particular phrase is just weird in either
language.
> In most cases, I'd tend to agree with pagh that it really works
> better not to make the listener wait until after the second verb
> to identify the subject for the first one.
'e' vIpIH. qechvam vIqelDI', muSIghbej vuDlIj.
pagh
Beginners' Grammarian