tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 29 16:24:40 2002

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Re: [KLBC] superlative + bogh?



From: "Steven Boozer" <[email protected]>
> And then we have this odd line from ST5:
>
>   qIbDaq [SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS].
>   You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy.
>
> Frankly, I'm not sure exactly what's going on here.  It appears that the A
> element - {A Q law' B Q puS} - is a sentence with the predicate tagged
with
> {-'e'}: {SuvwI''e' SoH}.  If I re-analyse it, we have:
>
>   qIbDaq SuvwI''e' [SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS].
>   As for the warrior in the galaxy, you are the greatest (of all).
>
> in which case the law'/puS bit is okay (Okrand has told us that A and B
can be
> pronouns), but the place stamp is now strange.  Does someone have a better
> transcription?

The transcription is fine.  Change the brackets to make it clearer:

[qIbDaq] [SuvwI''e'] [SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS].

While in English one preposition after another may indicate that one is
modifying the other, this isn't the case with Klingon nouns in the header
position.  There's no reason for us to assume that /qIbDaq/ is modifying
/SuvwI''e'/ in any way.  In fact, the rules of TKD prohibit this: if it did,
it would be a noun-noun construction with a Type 5 suffix on the first noun.

This could be turned into two sentences to make the point (keeping the
brackets to help):

qIbDaq [SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS].
You are the greatest in the galaxy.

SuvwI''e' [SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS].
As for warriors, you are the greatest.

The original sentence means both of these two sentences.

Here's one more way to make it clear.  Focus on the punctuation:

qIbDaq, SuvwI''e', SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS.

Voragh, ghomvamDaq Ca'Non pIn'e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS.

SuStel
Stardate 2080.5


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