tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 22 17:25:11 2009

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Prefixes not agreeing

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



Steven Lytle wrote:
> "mapum" doesn't mean 'fall'. It means "we fall" (or "we accuse"; "pum" is
> two different verbs). There is no point in losing information that is given
> in the original just because the translation is odd.
> In fact, "mapum Sor" could be interpreted as "We trees fall", although this
> use of a noun as subject with a non-third-person prefix is controversial at
> best.

At best. The utter lack of any such occurrence in Klingon, and a 
grammatical sketch whose rules are at odds with the notion, make this 
idea very much part of the realm of wishing. English has a convenient 
sort of pronoun-noun apposition, and they people think they see a way to 
reproduce it in Klingon.

I don't say "controversial" means "ungrammatical," but this practice is 
based on absolutely zero evidence.

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






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