tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 27 13:50:00 2009
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Re: Klingon translation
Terrence Donnelly wrote:
>> --- On Fri, 6/26/09, ghunchu'wI' <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> {'Iv HoS law' latlh HoS puS"} "Who is stronger than
>> the
>>> other one?"
>>>
>> On further consideration, I don't think this really expresses "Who
>> is the stronger?" I realize that the law'/puS construction is
>> fossilized and not really open to interpretation as a typical
>> Klingon sentence, but I think of it as two declarative statements:
>> X A law' Y A puS == 'The A of X is much, the A of Y is little'.
That'll get you into a lot of trouble. You can't extend the grammar of
law'/puS that way, but you'll be very tempted to do so, and to analyze
it in those terms.
>> So, "The strength of who? is much, the strength of another is
>> little'. I just don't think you can use 'Iv with law'/puS at all.
I don't see why not. {'Iv} is just performing its usual role: replacing
a noun or noun phrase and turning the sentence into a question.
>> On the other hand, it does seem that the law'/puS verbs can take
>> some verb suffixes, so I propose again {SuS bIr HoS law''a' qo' Hov
>> HoS puS'a' pagh qo' Hov HoS law''a' SuS bIr HoS puS'a'}
Woah! How does it seem that we can do that?
>> 'Is the cold wind stronger than the homestar, or is the homestar
>> stronger than the cold wind?'.
Actually, Pom Pom won the Strongest Man in the World Contest.
>> Or, for a completely different recasting, how about {SuS bIr qo'
>> Hov je qellu'taHvIS, HoSqu' 'Iv.}.
Is he only very strong while one is considering them? (Don't forget the
{lu-} on the verb.)
>> As an "indirect question", this would become {SuS bIr qo' Hov je
>> qellu'taHvIS, Hosqu'bogh Dol yIngu'}.
How is that an indirect question? It's pretty obviously a command.
--
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush
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