[tlhIngan Hol] Additional question about SAOs

Luis Chaparro Caballero luis.chaparro at web.de
Thu Oct 1 11:25:52 PDT 2020


Hi,

I've been thinking about the example SuStel gave to me in order to explain how SAOs should be understood as one singular idea.

> You should think of sentence-as-object constructions as if they were single ideas. A Klingon who says *paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov* isn't saying two separate 
> things; it's just one idea. Consider the sentence *romuluSngan HoHpu' tlhIngan 'e' vIleghbe'*/I didn't see the Klingon kill the Romulan./ The idea here 
> isn't that the Klingon killed the Romulan AND that I saw it. We don't know if the Klingon actually killed the Romulan; all we know is that I didn't see 
> any such act. It's one idea.

If we want it to be two different ideas, that is, an assertion about a fact AND an assertion about my perception, then we need something like a conjunction, right? *... 'ach 'e' vIleghbe'*.

A sentence like „I saw that he stole the money“ is in the first place a sentence about my perception, not about a fact. It's something I can say if someone thinks I couldn't see this event from my position or I haven't seen it properly, or maybe if I'm describing what I saw in a dream. But if I say: „He stole the money“, I'm giving information about a fact, about something that happened. It's something I can say if someone asks: „Who stole the money?“. And if we want to convince the other person or we try to prove why our assertion is true, we could say something like: „He has stolen the money, I saw it!“, that is, nobody told me, I haven't read it in the newspaper, I saw it with my own eyes. (Well, I hope my English is at this point right, in Spanish and German something like this is possible).

But if we say in Klingon:
*Huch nIHpu'. 'e' vIlegh.*
since punctuation or a pause when we're speaking makes no difference, the meaning of this sentence is always: „I saw that he stole the money“.

So, how can we translate a sentence like „He stole the money. I saw it!“? (I mean, as an assertion about a fact + an assertion about my perception). If a pause between the sentences doesn't help, do we need a noun?:
*Huch nIHpu'. wanI'vam vIleghpu'*

Or am I seeing a problem where there is no one?

Thank you!



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