tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 31 19:56:13 2000
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RE: Klingon Academy
This is interesting. Looking more closely at the term {tlhIngan SuvwI'},
even in English as "Fighter of Klingons", I think we can get even more
analytical about the term "fighter". Replace {SuvwI'} with {HoD} and it gets
a little more slippery, though it still works the same way. Meanwhile, the
other side of it being slippery is that it can also work like {tlhIngan
loD}. It depends upon whether you are thinking of "fight" as a transitive
verb where a fighter "of" something is one who has that thing as the direct
object of fighting, or if you see "fight" as intransitive and a fighter "of"
members of a group is simply a member of the group who is a fighter. Is the
captain an officer in command of Klingons, or is he a Klingon who is a
captain? It can go either way. Meanwhile, being a man has no transitive
equivalent. You can't be a man "of" Klingons, except to be a member of
Klingons who is also male.
Very slippery and interesting, indeed.
charghwI' 'utlh
-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Ruehlaender [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 12:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Klingon Academy
> But there *are* such cases in English, and they are mirrored
> well in Klingon. {romuluSngan maghwI'} is interpreted quite
> differently based on whether you consider {romuluSngan} as a
> noun preceding a second noun {maghwI'} or as the object of a
> verb. Is a "romulan traitor" a romulan who betrays? Or can
> it be one who betrays romulans? It's not a simple question.
>
> -- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
>
"a traitor of romulans" seems to be either "a romulan who betrays"
or "one who betrays romulans"; therefore I assume {romuluSngan
maghwI'} likewise might refer to {romuluSngan maghbogh nuv'e'}
just as well as the (more likely, I guess) {maghbogh romuluSngan}.
i.e. I don't need to interpret N1 in N1 Vb-wI' as an object of
Vb to get that reading. I just look at it as a N1-N2 construct,
which seems to be just as versatile and ambiguous as its english
counterpart.
in fact, if it wasn't, I'd have to say that the first interpretation
seems much more natural to me; likewise "a fighter of Klingons"
is much more naturally "one who fights Klingons" than "a Klingon
who fights", and we know quite well, the latter is a possible
reading for {tlhIngan SuvwI'}
(the same goes, btw, for "a romulans' traitor", "a Klingons' fighter")
in other words, I don't see a reason why there should be only
one possible reading?
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]