tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 19:06:03 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

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

Christopher Doty wrote:
> Okay, good, then we have been talking past each other a bit, I think.
> So let me walk through my reasoning a bit...
> 
> <yIH may'> is certainly "a tribble battle," or "a battle of tribbles."
>  We agree on that, I think.
> 
> But the battle that I am envisioning has nothing to do with tribbles.
> Tribbles is just being used as an insult.  To circumlocute a bit,
> imagine two warriors in the midst of a battle.  One says to the other
> (this sounds like the start of a joke, but it's not*):
> 
> <may'vam 'oH may' quvHa''e'. yIHvaD 'oH yInob!>
> "This battle is a dishonorable one.  Give it to the tribbles."
> 
> I'd rather like another verb here (more like leave behind... chuvmoH?
> Meh.  Anyway...).
> 
> This is what I was getting at, not an issue of the battle being a
> battle of tribbles, but that the battle is fit only tribbles to engage
> it, so leave it that they might have it.
> 
> I think maybe this thing I tried to say is weird, as it is sort of a
> translation of idiomatic English. Let's try something else.
> 
> What if we take the canon
> 
> <Qugh la'vaD QIn pav>
> Urgent message for Commander Kruge.
> 
> And think of a more extended context.  What if I said:
> 
> "The transmission is an urgent message for Commander Kruge."
> <Qugh la'vaD QIn pav 'oH jabbI'ID'e'>
> 
> Does this strike you as wrong for the same reason, when there is a
> clear recipient of an actual concrete thing?

Yes. It is the urgent message that is intended for Kruge, not the fact 
that "it is" ('oH) an urgent message.

How would you say "The communications officer ignored an urgent message 
for Commander Kruge"?

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

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