tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 20 19:36:43 2002
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Re: multiple N-ns5 in the "header area"
>reH latlh qabDaq qul tuj law' Hoch tuj puS.
ja' tulwI':
>...the whole sentence means "there is nothing hotter than
>fire on someone elses face", which implies that on the own face there
>can be something hotter than fire. this is not the meaning of the
>translation "the fire is always hotter on someone else's face".
Trying to decompose a {law'/puS} comparative as if it were a regular
sentence isn't going to work. It follows its own rules of grammar, which
aren't as well-documented as they might be. Perhaps the {latlh qabDaq} is
attached only to the first part of the phrase. Perhaps there's something
special about syntactic markers and superlatives that yields an unusual
interpretation.
Or perhaps the translation is just misleading, which happens often with
such proverbs.
-- ghunchu'wI'