tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 24 11:11:16 1999
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Re: jIHaDtaH again
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: jIHaDtaH again
- Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:11:07 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Tue, 23 Mar 1999 20:46:21 -0800 (PST) [email protected] wrote:
> In a message dated 3/23/99 10:51:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected]
> writes:
>
> << Are my questions so stupid you will not respond?
>
> >Here are my last batch of question again
>
> >I am working but I don't have any direction
> jIvumtaH 'ach ra' vIghajbe"
I don't think {ra'} is a very good word for "direction". For one
thing, it is a verb. Likely, a better word here would be {nab},
or the last phrase could be {'ach mura' pagh}. That would be
appropriate given our current BG...
> > jIHDaq jatlh neH
> He wants to speak to me.
Not really. "He merely speaks at me." "He wants to speak at me."
The {-Daq} points to a location, not a beneficiary. {jIHvaD}
would likely do better, unless you mean that a person is
speaking to the place you are, but not necessarily with the
intent of getting a message through to you.
> I don't know how -Daq is translated here, but try these phrases out:
>
> mujatlh neH
This is ambiguous, since it could mean "He wants to speak to
me," (if we use the prefix shortcut) or it could mean "He merely
speaks to me." Again, we use the prefix shortcut, since he
doesn't speak me. He speaks TO me.
> or
> mujatlh neH ghaH
>
> He wants to talk to me.
That's better. Enjoy translating this: "He always wants to
merely play." Don't use any explicit pronouns.
> > What if I want more of something? Getting out of my English way of thinking
> I have come up with these examples.
>
> >Soj vIneH
> I want food
>
> >Soj chonob
> Give me food.
No. This is a statement, not a command. "You give me food." The
prefix should be {HI-} if you want it to be a command, as you
note AFTER giving this bad translation.
> Here's a place for the imperative - a good wy to put it would be:
> Soj HInob - or - jIHvaD Soj yInob.
maj.
> > Hol ghojtaH ngeDbe' 'ach jISIQqang
> Learning the Language is not easy but I am willing to endure it.
I don't think it helps to translate what he meant to say if he
didn't say it well. "He is learning the language it is not easy
but I am willing to endure." {ghojtaH} and {ngeDbe'} are both
main verbs here. Neither one has a Type 9 suffix, so neither is
the dependent clause and there is no conjunction to give a
grammatical reason for two main verbs to be in one sentence.
This is almost always a mistake.
> I'd put it like Klaa did in STV - Hol ghojmeH Qatlh, 'ach jISIQqang.
Possibly this works, though remember that Klaa was from the
sticks and his grammar is not the best. This can easily be
interpreted to mean that by being difficult, the language serves
the purpose of being learned. The purpose of its difficulty is
to be learned. That doesn't feel quite right.
I suffered angst over this for some time before developing a
grammatical structure that satisfied me to convey this kind of
meaning. Since {-meH} clauses can modify nouns, I figured that
the learning of the language can be a task or a mission, so that
would be called a {Hol vIghojmeH Qu'}. It is the
"in-order-that-I-learn-the-language" task. That task is
difficult. Thus:
Qatlh Hol vIghojmeH Qu' 'ach vISIQqang.
> >Qapla'
>
> > Tony
> >>
>
>
> T'Lod
charghwI' 'utlh