tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 03 04:51:52 2000

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Re: KLBC: -law'



ja' De'vID:
>What do you think of a statement like /DaSovbej/?  Does this
>mean "You certainly know it" (which is how most people seem to read
>it)?  Or, strictly going by the rules, is it "I am certain that you
>know it"?  Perhaps there is not much difference.

I don't see a difference.  The certainty is being stated from the point of
view of the speaker.

However, {DaSovbej'a'} is a line from ST:VI, subtitled "Are you sure?"
Perhaps it's the interrogative that transfers the qualification from the
speaker to the answerer, or perhaps Type 6 verb suffixes are just not quite
as clear-cut as TKD makes them out to be in the first place. :-)

>Also, what do you think of pagh's example from canon:
>
>pagh:
>>...<puvlaHbogh Duj ngabmoHlaw' So'wI'>...
>
>In this case, the Klingon Science Guy is obviously not saying
>that *he* is uncertain that the cloaking device would make ships
>disappear.  He *is* certain - certain that the cloaking device would
>make the ship *apparently* disappear to whomever was watching it.
>At least, that's how I would read the sentence.

The change in viewpoints might go along with the action of {-moH}, or it
might just be that {-law} is somewhat loose in how it applies.

>Let's come up with an artificially contrived example.  Suppose
>a Klingon adult is showing a child the wonders of science.
>He shows her a /ghewHom/ through a microscope.  Is it proper for
>him to say, /tInlaw'/ "It appears to be big"?  Or is it
>wrong in this instance, since he knows for a fact that the
>/ghewHom/ is actually very small?

That goes along with the Skybox example in treating {-law'} as indicating
illusory situations, not just uncertain ones.  I know *I* would understand
such a use, but I can't say whether it's strictly grammatical in
prescriptive terms.

-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh




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