tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 17 11:49:00 2002
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Re: to' nech, 051-061
At 08:42 2002-04-17 -0400, David Trimboli wrote:
> > K: yI'uchchu'!
> > Gloss: Grab it!
>How about:
>nom yIwoH!
Yes, woH is much better. And the more I think about it, 'uchchu' makes me
think of what you do to a rope in a game of tug-of-war, instead of just
reaching out and grabbing something to get the feel of it.
> > K: beqvaD jo' yIlan.
> > Gloss: Replace a crewman with a machine.
> > [I'm unsure of the choice of verb, and of the argument structure.]
>
>I like the Klingon sentence here; it has a slightly different feel, but it
>seems to come out to the same thing as the gloss ultimately.
>
>Without context, it's a little vague. It's unclear whether the beneficiary
>(beq) actually benefits from the action, or is affected by it, or what.
Exactly what I was worrying about. On the one hand, I want "-vaD" to
signal who's actually being given something (in which case you could read
the above as something like "set him up with new equipment", altho that too
is hardly a bad idea). And on the other hand, I think of "-vaD" as a
serving, in a pinch, as a sort of "general particle for tagging the third
argument of a verb".
And there's the precedent of English's very non-benefactive uses of "for",
as in "I'm substituting a new battery for the old one" and "I'll trade you
my Fruit Roll-Up for your Hohos!",
That's to say nothing of English weirdness like: "hot tea is good for
[i.e., against!] colds", and something a friend of mine swears he's heard:
"I'm collecting money for breast cancer" [i.e., money to benefit an
organization that develops treatments for [i.e., against!] breast cancer,
not money that can be used for buying breast cancer].
Does the Canon Master see any -vaD uses that are non-benefactive?
> > K: puS Qo'! Hoch!
> > Gloss: Not some! ALL!
> > [My first attempt at clipped Klingon -- I'm not sure what one can do with
> > Qo' in clipped Klingon, or where it would go.]
>I wouldn't do it like this. I don't think it works at all. Try this:
>'op? Qo'! Hoch!
Yes, much zippier that way! And using 'op seems to make it better for mass
nouns, like wine, or honor.
That Dup nech always reminded me of that old Oscar Wilde quote, along the
lines of: {yapchugh, nay' 'oH. 'Iqchugh, 'uQ'a'na' 'oH!}
vIt Dun 'oH, 'a tlhIngan ghaHbe'ba' Wilde'e' -- vIq cha'be' paqmeyDaj!
--
Sean M. Burke http://www.spinn.net/~sburke/