tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 02 11:18:48 2009

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Re: Cogito ergo sum (was RE: Numbers with pronouns)

Mark J. Reed ([email protected]) [KLI Member]



On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 2:02 PM, Christopher Doty <[email protected]> wrote:
>> taH pagh taHbe'
>> "To be or not to be." ST6
>>
>> KGT 194: Âliterally, "[one] continues or [one] does not continue"
>
> Oh, my. ÂIs that Okrand's translation from KGT?? 'oy' jay'!! ÂBased on
> everything we know (well, more strictly, what I know), <taH pagh
> taHbe'> means "s/he/it endures or s/he/it doesn't endure." ÂI have no
> idea why Okrand would translate these normal, active verbs into this
> odd English construction...

Sorry, Chris, but you lost me. What is your complaint here?

Sequence of events: Okrand was asked to translate "To be or not to be"
for Star Trek VI.  He came up with {taH pagh taHbe'}, inventing the
verb {taH} on the spot, obviously a back-formation from the suffix.

Later, Okrand mentioned the phrase in KGT, offering the more literal
back-translation above: "[one] continues or [one] does not continue".
I don't see how that is significantly different from your "s/he/it
endures or s/he/it doesn't endure" rendering, aside from the choice of
gloss ("continue" is listed as the primary gloss of the verb {taH}, no
doubt because of its origins in the aspect marker) and the use of
[one] rather than [s/he/it] for "unspecified third person singular"..

I could understand complaining about the choice of Klingon to
represent the English, but I don't understand your objection to the
English used to render the Klingon, or how it's "odd", or any less
"active" than your version (since the verbs are in the active voice in
both cases, and neither verb is semantically all that active).

-marqoS
-- 
Mark J. Reed <[email protected]>






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