tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 21 09:37:17 2007

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RE: Dilbert Comic in Klingon for February 10, 2007

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



At 10:39 AM Wednesday 2/21/2007, pm5 wrote:
> >      pIn: {ngeDlaw' 'e'.} (3)
> >     Boss: "That sounds easy."

DloraH:
>'e' can be only an object, not the subject.

When using "it", "that", "this" or any other dummy subject - what's the 
linguistic term for this? - don't try to translate it.  Just use the verb 
in the third person.  Consider this exchange from ST5:

   KLAA:   qIpmeH Qatlh'a'?
           Difficult to hit?  (i.e. [Is it] difficult to hit?")

   VIXIS:  Qatlhqu'.
           Most difficult.  (i.e. [It is] very difficult.")

or this comment from ST3:

   KRUGE:  Do'Ha'.
           Unfortunate. ST3  (i.e. "[It is] unfortunate.")

See also "Power Klingon":

   De' lI' Sovlu'DI' chaq Do'Ha'.
   Knowledge of useful information may be unfortunate.

BTW this is how you use weather verbs.  DloraH managed to speak to Marc 
Okrand during some convention (May 1998) about the weather:

   It rained a few times during the weekend, so we were put into the
   situation to discuss it.  {SIS}.  {SISqu'}.  {SIStaH}.  {SISchoH}.
   All correct.  {SISlu'}, although grammatically correct, he didn't
   particularly like... You can also give it an object and say things
   like the clouds rained down cats and dogs... or something like that;
   you get the idea. But when Marc and I went outside and drops of water
   were falling on us, he looked up and simply said "{SIS}".




--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons






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