tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 15 11:14:55 2001
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Re: I had an idea, I don't know how...
qurgh,
This is the infamous and evil "Question As Object" dilemma. Some people
will scream at you that it must be allowed, and others will do the same
saying it's not. I tend to believe the latter. At least, while it doesn't
violate any rules, it doesn't "work" in Klingon.
Let's use your sentence as an example:
"My computer crashed today; I don't know why."
If you believe in the Question As Object:
qatlh DaHjaj QapHa' De'wI'wIj 'e' vISov.
You have found a workaround:
DaHjaj QapHa' De'wI'wIj. qatlh? jISovbe'.
However, I find the idea of Klingons constantly asking rhetorical questions
a silly one. Luckily for us, there's an easy solution to this particular
example:
DaHjaj QapHa' De'wI'wIj. meq vISovbe'.
Sometimes we're not so lucky to have a convenient noun like /meq/ to do
things like this. In these cases, the sentence must be reworded.
There have been reams of work posted and published about the Question As
Object. It has never been fully explained by Okrand. Your best bet is not
to use it. People who hate QAO will appreciate that, and people who like it
will not even notice, because your reworded sentence doesn't have it.
SuStel
Stardate 1874.6
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Lipscombe" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 11:51 AM
Subject: I had an idea, I don't know how...
> The other night I was trying to fall asleep and, as often happens, I
started
> translating random phrases I had said or heard during the day. Then I came
> to one that stumped me. I had said to someone, "My computer crashed today,
I
> don't know why...". The first part was easy:
>
> DaHjaj mevpu' De'wI'wIj... (I used mev cause I couldn't think of anything
> better at the time)
>
> Then I tried to translate "I don't know why." The first thing that came to
> mind was:
>
> qatlh jISovbe'
>
> But, then I realized that won't work, as it means "Why don't I know?" So I
> pondered for a while, throwing thinks around in my mind, but I always
ended
> up with "qatlh jISovbe'"
>
> So, I went back to the English, "I don't know why." What does this mean?
> Well, to me, I worked out, it means that I am answering the question why?
> before it is asked... and then it clicked and I said it out loud, "qatlh?
> jISovbe'" and nearly woke up the person beside me.
>
> I then went through a bunch of ways in my mind to explain this to someone,
> which basically went something like this:
>
> DeghwI':mevpu' Duj
> HoD: qatlh?
> DeghwI': jISovbe'
>
> So, if the DeghwI' knew the HoD would ask why, he could just have said,
> "mevpu' Duj. qatlh? jISovbe'" which would mean "The ship has stopped. I
> don't know why."
>
> I'd say this would work for any similar phrases, I don't know how, I don't
> know where, I don't know when etc
>
> I didn't know if anyone else had talked about this anywhere before, but I
> just came to me, so I thought I would post it here, and see if anyone else
> has any thoughts on this.
>
> Qapla'
>
> qurgh
>
>