tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 20:05:12 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

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



Christopher Doty wrote:

>> That says "The communications officer ignored, for Commander Kruge, an
>> urgent message." It's as if Kruge ordered the officer to ignore all
>> urgent messages, not as if the officer took it upon himself to ignore
>> any urgent messages specifically for Kruge.
> 
> But why does it say this?  I haven't seen anything anywhere which
> indicates that this interpretation is the only one possible.  That is,
> I don't understand why you're saying that this interpretation is
> correct, and the other isn't.
 >
> You might note that "The communications officer ignored an urgent
> message for Commander Kruge" is actually ambiguous in English: it
> could me that the messages was for Kruge and it was ignored, or that
> an urgent message was ignored at the behest of Kruge.  I don't know
> why you're saying that this ambiguity isn't present in Klingon.
> 
>> Qugh la'vaD QIn pav lI'lu'pu'bogh buSHa'pu' QumpIn
>> The communications officer ignored a message which was transmitted to
>> Commander Kruge.
>>
>> Here, {Qugh la'vaD} is tied to {lI'lu'pu'bogh}, not {QIn pav}, and not
>> {buSHa'pu'}. There are other verbs I could have used than {lI'}, but the
>> point is that it takes a bit of recasting to get the Klingon to mean
>> what we want it to mean.
> 
> But again, I haven't seen anything that says this.  Why is {Qugh
> la'vaD} tied to {lI'lu'pu'bogh} in this sentence, and why does that
> make it correct?

Frankly, I'm not sure how else to explain it. Maybe someone else can do 
so where I have failed.

chaq SoHvaD pabvam QIjlaH latlh ghot. jIQongchoH DaH 'e' vIHech.

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






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