Re: KLBC challenge

["William H. Martin" <whm2m@cms.mail.virginia.edu>]

On Tue, 6 Jul 1999 15:48:20 -0400 Marc Ruehlaender 
<ruehli@iastate.edu> wrote:

> 
> > It would really have helped to have included the original 
> > example here. Without it, further discussion is pointless. I 
> > thought that {wa'} followed the verb, as in {yI-X wa'}. 
> > Meanwhile, it is not here to observe and I don't feel like 
> > digging through the archive.
> > 
> > charghwI' 'utlh
> > 
> sigh!!! I'm terribly sorry, Sir, I know you haven't had a
> lot of time to share and I am honestly grateful for your
> willingness to temporarily fill in as BG.

qay'be'. It's just that when you discuss an example, it is good 
to literally list the example. That way, I know exactly what you 
are talking about. Otherwise, we split off into monologues, each 
of us deeply into our half of the conversation without quite 
understanding the other half.
 
> I thought that the portion I quoted was, indeed, sufficient
> background for my question. But let me state it again:
> 
> In the phrase "Advance one!", I, not being a native speaker
> of English, do not readily recognize "one" as being the
> subject of the verb "advance"; thus my confusion about its
> being treated as such in the Klingon translations.
> 
> If it really is some kind of subject for the phrase, I'd be
> interested in what it *means*! Does the speaker tell the
> group of people he adresses to chose one of them to step
> forward as a representative? Then, I'd translate that as
> 
> wa' yIDuvmoH!
> 
> (don't care about what to say for "one of you" at the moment)

I like this. You express your point well and recast the 
expression in a way that does clearly get the point across. The 
only problem with it in reference to the original example is 
that you are assuming that more than one person is behind the 
door. We were never shown that. In fact, the whole point of the 
exercise was how to address an unknown number of people with a 
command.

English uses one word for singular or plural second person and 
the original post seemed to be focussing on how to choose which 
was the right one when you don't know which is the right one.

The simple truth is that there is no real difference between 
this example and one which used the THIRD person. What if you 
were to say to tell someone else in the room to talk to 
him/her/them? Would you use {yI-} or {tI-}? That's no different 
from the problem of how to say "Come forward!" Would you say 
that at {yIghoS} or {peghoS}? I guess you could say {HIghoS}. 
But if you used {'el}, would it be {yI'el} or {pe'el}?

Meanwhile, it gets even trickier if you are trying to, without 
knowing whether there is only one or several people behind the 
door, to get only one of them to enter.

Of course, in that circumstance, I'd say, {nIteb yI'el!}. If 
there are more than one and they are honest in their response, 
they have to either explain to me that there are more than one 
of them, or choose one to go first, since that is the only way 
he could go "alone".
 
> if it means they should all step up *in turn*, one after the
> other, then say that (I, myself, would not know how, though)!

nIteb pe'el! pequqQo'!
 
>                                            Marc Ruehlaender
>                                            aka HomDoq
>                                            ruehli@iastate.edu
> 

Will Martin
UVA ITC Computer Support Services