RE: RE: KLBC: double -bogh verbs

["Andeen, Eric" <Eric.Andeen@Sequencia.com>]

On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:44:09 -0800 (PST) Steven Boozer 
<sboozer@midway.uchicago.edu> 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