tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 10 07:42:59 2003
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RE: lugh'a' mughghachvam?
- From: "Dr. Jeremy DM Cowan" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: lugh'a' mughghachvam?
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 07:39:13 -0500
- Importance: Normal
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
From: Klingon Warrior [mailto:[email protected]]
Subject: Re: lugh'a' mughghachvam?
>The sentence, /muDalmoH wanI'vam/ is really saying "This event causes
me to be boring"? Here is how I'm looking at it, and see if you still
disagree or not. I'm taking the verb /Dal/ which is a
descriptive-condition verb (in other words, it's condition is one that
describes like an adjective). By placing the verb suffix -moH on it, am
I not changing the meaning from "be boring" to "to bore"? Am I not
changing its condition from one of description to one of action? In
other words, isn't the sentence actually saying, "This event bores me"?
If a descriptive verb like the word for "be open" (/poS/) is changed to
an action condition with -moH (/poSmoH/ = "to open"), why isn't "be
boring" changed to "bore"? What do you think?
>
The English is confusing you because of its inconsistency.
Open is both an adjective and a verb, but one refers to the subject and
the other refers to the object. Compare the following: "(The subject)
is open." "(The subject) opens (the object)." Do you see that with the
adjective, the subject is open and with the verb, the object is open and
the subject is the one that caused it to be open? The Klingon suffix
"-moH" also does this to a word. "poS (subject)." "(object) poSmoH
(subject)." In the first sentence the subject is open and in the
second, the object is open.
Now as for bore/boring. The Klingon is consistent, but the English is
not. This time, in the English, both words describe the subject. "(The
subject) is boring." "(The subject) bores (the object)." However in
Klingon we still get a switch of what is being described from the
subject to the object. "Dal (subject)." "(object) DalmoH (subject)."
As it was with "open", in the first sentence, the subject is boring. In
the second sentence (with "-moH") it is now the object that is boring
and the subject is what caused it to be boring.
Other examples of words like "open" where the English verb form makes
the adjective form describe the object:
QaD - be protected QaDmoH - to protect
rIQ - be injured rIQmoH - to injure
pIl - be inspired pIlmoH - to inspire
yay' - be shocked yay'moH - to shock
mIS - be confused mISmoH - to confuse
Hach - be developed HachmoH - to develop
tlhuH - be invigorated tlhuHmoH - to invigorate
tlhab - be free tlhabmoH - to free
lam - be dirty lammoH - to dirty
Say' - be clean Say'moH - to clean
Notice the pattern above. All but the last three adjectives end in -ed.
And those last three could be said with -ed (which changes the
connotation, but not the meaning). This is also true of open/opened.
With these words dropping the "be" and the "-ed" is an appropriate way
to translate them. Does anyone know of a counter example to this?
Other examples of words like "bore" where the English verb form makes
the adjective describe the subject:
qay' - be a hassle qay'moH IS NOT to hassle
joch - be harmful jochmoH IS NOT to harm
jIv - be ignorant jIvmoH IS NOT to ignore
When the English translation does not end in -ed, you are best to
translate -moH first as "cause to" then you can look for an English
word that has the same meaning (which is rare).
Jeremy