tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 17 14:38:34 2001

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RE: KLBC: the pronoun <<net>>

ro'Han said:

	BTW, can you tell me how one would say "He should do something" in
Klingon? 
	Is -nIS sufficient, or is there another way? As well, I am mystified
as to 
	the practical use of <<net>>; can you give me some examples further
to the 
	explanation in TKD? 

I'll answer this first, and then get to the Othello translation in another
reply.

For "He should (do something)", {-nIS} can work in many cases.
For example, if you wanted to say "He should not drink the poison", you
could use:
{tar tlhutlhbe'nIS} "He needs to not drink the poison."

However, you shouldn't assume that you can use {-nIS} everytime you want to
say "He should..." "Should" can mean several different things in English.

One thing that "should" can mean is obligation. For example, "You should
visit dear ol' grannie."
"-nIS" would work in such cases:
{SoSnI'oy DaSuchnIS} "You need to visit grandma."

"Should" can also mean that something is expected:
"He should arrive tomorrow."
We could express this in Klingon as:
{wa'leS paw 'e' vIpIH} "I expect that he will arrive tomorrow."
Or, relating to your question about {net}, we could say:
{wa'leS paw net pIH} "It is expected that he will arrive tomorrow."

To fully answer your question about {net}:
The pronoun {'e'} refers to the previous sentence. For example, the
following 2 sentences can be combined:
{jImoH} "I am ugly."
{'e' Sov} "She knows that (previous sentence)."
{jImoH 'e' Sov} "She knows that I am ugly."

The pronoun {net} also refers to the previous sentence. However, it is used
when the subject is "one" or "someone".
For example:
{jImoH net Sov} "One knows that I am ugly." This implies that "I am ugly" is
common knowledge.

Another example:
{yoH verenganpu' net Hon} "One doubts that Ferengi are brave." This could be
reworded as "It is doubted that Ferengi are brave."

So basically, if you were going to say {'e' <verb>lu'}, instead you could
say {net <verb>}.


- taD

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