tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 02 10:06:43 2009

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Re: Numbers with pronouns

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

ghunchu'wI' 'utlh wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Seruq <[email protected]> wrote:
>> jIQub vaj jIH.
>>
>> It's not canon.
> 
> It's pretty much anti-canon.  The existence of the verb {taH} "go on,
> endure, continue" (and the real-world context which created it) is a
> very strong indication that one does not use pronouns to mean "to be"
> in the sense of "to exist".

I disagree that {taH} proves anything about "being." Okrand didn't 
invent a way to say something that means "To be or not to be." He 
invented something that means "To go on or not to go on." Consider the 
context of Hamlet's question: "Should I kill myself or not? Should I 
endure this? Should I go on?" Okrand's Hamlet isn't saying anything 
about "being."

>> I suppose it could be labelled as poetic license.  But how would you do that
>> sentence?
> 
> (SuStel does it exactly the way you did.  I'll let him explain why.)

I do it without claiming grammatical rigor: "my experience of my 
thinking demonstrates exactly one thing to me: me-ness."

For all that pronouns equal "to be" in English, they're still just 
pronouns. They can be used in some verb-like ways, but they're still 
pronouns (or, according to Klingon grammarians, {chuvmey}). Saying 
{tlhIngan jIH} is the same as saying "me Klingon."

Therefore, I consider {jIQub vaj jIH} the "right" way to say this, but 
it is equal to saying "I think, therefore me." It's not grammatical, but 
the point is more important than the grammar.

> Some have argued that {jIQub} is enough, as it automatically implies
> that I am a real entity, but that's kind of a cop-out.

It is. It completely fails to understand the whole point of saying it in 
the first place.

> I'd probably try to be explicit and say {jIQubmo' jIngebbe'ba'}.

The {-ba'} does absolutely nothing for me here. Using {ngebbe'} loses 
the necessary subjectiveness of the statement. It does capture the basic 
idea, though.

-- 
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush

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