tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 30 20:22:48 2009

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Re: need vs. obligation

Christopher Doty ([email protected])



On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 20:02,  <[email protected]> wrote:
> Does tlhIngan Hol differentiate between "to need" and "to have to"?  So far I haven't been able to find anything like the latter. I am aware of the suffix {-nIS} being translated as both... but given that most languages I've studied have different means of expressing either, I'm hesitant to throw it all under {-nIS}... unless that's the Klingon way, of course.

Hrm...  Not sure there is much meaning difference between "need" and
"must", and languages do weird stuff in this area (Modern Nahuatl, for
example, doesn't HAVE a way to say that you need/must do something,
except for a (poor) calque from Spanish, which speakers themselves
never use).  You could say something like "I am commanded"
(<vI'ra'lu'>) is you needed to make it clear that one outside yourself
was imposing the obligation?

> Dogh chu' 'e'. (To be new is to be foolish?)

<chu'lu'chegh Doghlu'>

??






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