tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 23 12:58:25 2004

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Re: DCKL translation problems: {tlhogh}

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

SuStel:
>*shrug*  /ngoS tlhogh/ "The marriage dissolves."  Not a lot of difference
>there.  Works perfectly, colloquially translated.  Do we have any indication
>of what the correct subject of /ngoS/ is, outside of this line?  In those
>rare instances where TV Klingon appears to be correct, I hate to complain
>about it.

That's just it:  Okrand has never used {ngoS}, only Paramount.  His gloss 
{dissolve" is ambiguous.  I took it to be transitive, but you saw it as 
intransitive.  To me, the simplest solution is to go for the transitive 
meaning:

   Hergh ngoS bIQ
   water dissolves the medicine

since the intransitive can easily be rendered by {-lu}:

   bIQDaq Hergh ngoSlu'
   the medicine dissolves in water

Though, I suppose you could just as easily imagine {ngoS} to be intransitive:

   bIQDaq ngoS Hergh
   the medicine dissolves in water

and add the causative suffix {-moH} to make it a transitive:

   Hergh ngoSmoH bIQ
   water dissolves the medicine

I guess I always assume that even if Paramount uses the right words, their 
grammar will be wrong!



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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