tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 13 16:51:15 2004

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Re: weQqul's Urdu poem

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

Voragh suggested:
> >    ben chalvaD bI'Ip SoH.
> >    DaH jIghoS.  'IplIj jIH.
> >
> >    Years ago *you* made an oath to the sky.
> >    Now I come.  *I* am your oath.

SuStel:
>I'd like to point out to weQqul that saying the pronoun is not necessarily
>the same as emphasis.  I know Voragh disagrees with me on this.

Not always. <g>

>For emphasis, you should use the /-'e'/ suffix.  Just using an explicit
>pronoun can be used for clarity, or, in my opinion, to fill out syllables.
>Consider:
>
>   Duj tIj tlhIngan.  vImuS.
>   The Klingon boarded the ship.  I hate him(?)/it(?).
>
>Which do I hate?  The Klingon or the ship?  I can clarify:
>
>   Duj tIj tlhIngan.  ghaH vImuS.
>   The Klingon boarded the ship.  I hate him.
>
>This is not emphasis, it is clarification.

Agreed... unless you've already been talking about that particular Klingon 
and the ship is just a side issue.

>If I use /-'e'/, it would be emphasis.
>
>   Duj tIj tlhIngan.  ghaH'e' vImuS.
>   The Klingon boarded the ship.  I hate *him*.
>   The Klingon boarded the ship.  It is he whom I hate.
>
>(Presumably I'm saying I hate the Klingon and not the ship, though context
>could change this interpretation.)

No arguments here.  Depending on the context, you may well need to make it 
this explicit, though I'd bet it sounds a bit stilted, rather like your "It 
is he whom I hate".  (We'd need to ask Maltz about the use and over-use of 
{'e'} in Klingon style.)

To re-analyze my off-the-cuff translation:

    ben chalvaD bI'Ip SoH.
    Years ago *you* made an oath to the sky.

Here the pronoun is emphatic.  It adds no additional syntactic information 
than the prefix {bI-}.

    DaH jIghoS.  'IplIj jIH.
    Now I come.  I am your oath.

Here it's a case of pronoun-as-verb.  A simple "I am X" statement.  In 
fact, without the pronoun, there's no sentence.  Emphasis, however, can be 
added:

    DaH jIghoS.  'IplIj jIH'e'.
    Now I come.  *I* am your oath.

Here tagging the pronoun with {-'e'} is emphatic, though it could also be a 
way of shifting the topic from you (in the previous line) to me (the rest 
of the poem).  Using this version, however, destroys the rudimentary rhyme 
and adds an unneeded syllable unless we add {-'e'} to the first line as well:

    ben chalvaD bI'Ip SoH'e'.
    DaH jIghoS.  'IplIj jIH'e'.

    Years ago *YOU* made an oath to the sky.
    Now I come.  *I* am your oath.

But this is probably way too much emphasis for such short lines.  (But 
reading it aloud, I think it scans better with the {-'e'}s!)



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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