tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 26 06:11:10 2004
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RE: Using object prefixes with "intransitive" verbs
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Using object prefixes with "intransitive" verbs
- Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 23:56:36 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Paul:
>/loS/ perhaps might be better thought of as "expect, wait (for)"
chaq <await> lo'laH je vay': <I await him> 'oSlaH {vIloS}; <I await the
ship's glorious return> 'oSlaH {Duj cheghqa'ta'ghach quvqu' vIloS}.
ghItlhpu' Heather:
>We already have a word for "expect": <pIH>. TKD says <loS> means "wait
>(for)", and <pIH> means "expect" or "be suspicious". Please don't
>reinterpret the Klingon words from an English standpoint; they're
>Klingon words.
I think the meaning of "expect" that Paul means is not the same as what
Heather means. There are two meanings of "expect": "She's expecting a baby".
If a woman is "expecting" a baby in English, she's not "expecting that she
will have" one (or "being suspicious" that she will have one), she is
"awaiting" it. I think this falls right into line in Klingon: {yatlh be';
ghu loS} means "the woman is pregnant; she's waiting for/expecting the
baby", whereas {yatlh be'; ghu pIH}, as I understand it, means "the woman is
pregnant; she suspects that it is a baby". taQ 'e' vIHar.
That's just my opinion, but that's what the definitions point towards in my
mind. There's nothing wrong that I can see with translating {loS} as
"expect". We should think about how it might translate from Klingon to
English, not just the other way around. As I said, I see some rather bizarre
connotations to the sentence {yatlh be'; ghu pIH}. She suspects maybe a
targ? {{:D
>Stick with what we've been given. There's nothing wrong
>with using these words the way they're defined. <loS> doesn't need to
>mean "expect" because <pIH> already means that.
{baHwI'} wIlo'laHchugh, {matHa'} wIlo'be'nIS'a'? {{:) Synonyms allow for
diversity.
If we use Klingon words only the way they're defined (with just one word in
TKD in a lot of cases), we find ourselves in all sorts of trouble.
Definitions in TKD are very often ambiguous. {Dub} "improve", {vIH} "move",
and {HeghmoH} "be fatal" are three examples I can think of that have caused
debate in the past. And how about {ghor}? EVen that's caused some debate.
{{:D
As well, the semantics of {loS} and {pIH} appear different in Klingon (due
in part to the other meanings we're given), and as I explained earlier, the
word "expect" in English seems to be the problem due to its ambiguity.
This is something I learned (the hard way, I admit) from the venerable
{charghwI' 'utlh} some years ago now: One must not only be conscious of how
the English words translate into Klingon, but how the Klingon words you
generate would translate back into English.
Savan.
QeS lagh
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