tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 03 12:53:40 2009

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RE: chay' "Get out of the way!" ra'lu'?

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) 

Fiat Knox:
>> yIDev pagh yItlha' pagh HIwaQ 'e' yImev!
Voragh:
> Also, I'm not sure {pagh} "or else, either/or" works with three 
> clauses.  All canon examples have only two clauses, usually opposites 
> (e.g. eat vs. drink, VERB vs. VERB{be'}, VERB vs. VERB{Ha'}).  I would 
> drop the first {pagh}:

>Fiat Knox wrote:
>> I also recall "pung ghap HoS," "Mercy or power," where "ghap" is
>> "exclusive OR." Mercy and power are mutually incompatible, in this
>> sense.
>>
>> In my sentence, the sentence-joining "exclusive or" preposition
>> "pagh" was required to convey that same sense of mutual exclusivity.
>> One is either leading, or following me; one cannot just stand there
>> and be in the speaker's way. Well, one could, if one were willing to
>> enjoy getting swiftly knocked down.

SuStel:
>The objection wasn't to your choice of words, it was to your placement
>of the conjunctions.  Instead of
>
>	<phrase> pagh <phrase> pagh <phrase>
>
>the suggestion was to use
>
>	<phrase>, <phrase>, pagh <phrase>
>
>because we've seen things like this before.
>
>However, I would call that a stylistic suggestion, not anything we know
>definitively about the grammar.

Actually my objection wasn't to the placement of conjunctions in general, but the placement/use of {pagh} "or else, either/or" specifically, which (to me) implies a choice between only two options:  either/or.  Using it with three options seemed odd... rather like speakers who misuse "on the other hand".  E.g.:

   I could be right. On the other hand SuStel could be right.  
   And on the other hand Fiat Knox could also be right!

Thus implying three hands!  

 
--
Voragh                          
Canon Master of the Klingons

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