tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 26 21:55:55 2001
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RE: KLBC - Valentines Day (correction)
- From: "Stauffer, Tad E (staufte7)" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: KLBC - Valentines Day (correction)
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 00:54:26 -0500
> mara said:
>
> > rapchuqlaw'chugh cha' nuv, nep wa' (If two people are the same, one is
> > lying.)
> >
>
I erroneously replied:
> maj.
>
As was pointed out to me privately, your sentence here actually isn't quite
correct. I sent the email without double-checking it, so unfortunately an
error slipped by.
{reH latlh qabDaq qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS} (a Klingon replacement proverb,
which basically means "Whoops")
You said {rapchuqlaw'chugh cha' nuv...}. The problem is with the suffix
{-chuq}, which means "each other", and with the verb {rap}, which means "be
the same".
What happens if you combine these two parts into *{rapchuq}? You would get
something such as:
{*rapchuq cha' nuv}, which means "Two people are the same each other", which
doesn't really make sense.
If you want to use {-chuq}, then the verb must be able to take an object
(this kind of verb is considered "transitive"). In other words, the verb is
something that you could do to something else.
For example, you can use the verb {legh} this way:
{puq legh vav } "The father sees the child"
and you could also say:
{leghchuq cha' nuv} "Two people see each other"
However, for words like {rap} ("be the same"), {'IH} ("be beautiful"),
{ghung} ("be hungry"), etc., you can only have a subject for the verb; you
can't have an object.
You cannot say:
*{puq ghung vav} "The father is hungry the child"
and similarly, you couldn't say:
*{ghungchuq cha' nuv} "Two people are hungry each other"
So, if you want to say that two people are similar, you have two ways to do
it:
1)
If you use a word like {rap} ("be the same"), the subject of the verb is the
things that are the same. You don't use {-chuq} here.
For example, you can say:
{rap cha' nuv} "Two people are the same"
2)
If you use a verb that can have a subject and an object, then you can use
{-chuq}.
For example, you can say:
{rurchuq cha' nuv} "Two people resemble each other"
You wanted to say "If two people are the same...". So in order to correct
your original sentence, the only thing you would need to change is to remove
the {-chuq}.
- taD
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