tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 29 19:38:18 2004

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KLBC: chay' vuDwIj vIjatlh, 'ej chay' ngoD vIjatlh?

MorphemeAddict ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol taghwI']

looking through HolQeD v9n2 (2000/6), i notice on pages 7-8 ("kli round 
table" on beliefs) and on page 10 (will martin's article "deixis") the opinion that 
the klingon equivalent of "i think mara is beautiful" would be simply {'IH 
mara'}.  the reasoning is that anything a person says can be considered that 
person's (and no one else's) opinion, so softening it in any of a number of ways 
(including -law', Qub, Har) would be repugnant to a klingon.

my question is: how would a klingon then differentiate between stating his 
opinion and stating a fact?  if the act of his stating it makes it his opinion, 
how does he state a fact?  

using {-law'} seems to me to be definitely wrong here.  {-law'} expresses 
uncertainty on the speaker's part.  in the example, the speaker is certain; his 
opinion is definite.  but it is only his opinion.  perhaps the clearest way is 
to simply say it is an opinion:  {'IH mara' 'e' 'oH vuDwIj(na')'e'} ("my 
(definite) opinion is that mara is beautiful") [is that right?] 

lay'tel SIvten

p.s.  a high school friend of mine had the same opinion about stating 
opinions baldly, and that was 30 years ago.  i thought he was wrong too, for the same 
reason:  how to distinguish between opinion and fact?

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