tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 15:22:39 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

Christopher Doty ([email protected]) 

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 15:08, David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
> So "being a battle" {may' 'oH} is done "for tribbles" {yIHvaD}. The
> intended recipients of "being a battle" are tribbles. I used "benefit"
> in the sense of receiving an action, not necessarily that good would
> accrue to the tribbles. In other words, "beneficiary of the action."

Ah, okay, I thought you actually meant "benefits from."

> If by "it is battle for tribbles" you mean that only tribbles are low
> enough to bother fighting it, then you've got to rework the sentence in
> some way; it doesn't mean what you're trying to say. "A dishonorable
> battle is a battle that tribbles should fight" contains no idea of
> tribbles receiving the "action" of being a battle. The bit about the
> tribbles only modifies the word "battle."

I'm just not getting this, and maybe it's because I'm being super
dense, but compare

yIHvaD may' 'oH may' quvHa''e'

and

Qugh la'vaD QIn pav
[Urgent message for Commander Kruge.] (ST3 DVD case)

These seem like an analogous construction to me; I'm not sure why the
last one is okay and the the first is not....  (Sorry, not trying to
be difficult, just confused..)

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