[tlhIngan Hol] where the adverb refers and {tlhoS}

[SuStel]

On 8/27/2021 9:29 AM, Will Martin wrote:
> I think you guys have gone overboard with this thin-ice argument that 
> Klingon adverbials CAN BE TRANSLATED to apply to things other than 
> either the verb (most commonly), or in special cases where the context 
> clarifies WTF you are talking about, nouns.
>
> A simpler truth is that your precious, exceptional English 
> translations would only make sense if the English translation had the 
> same context that the Klingon expression did, and if it HAD that 
> context, you would, like the Klingon expression, not need the emphasis 
> you are putting on it.

Why are you so angry?


> I maintain that adverbials apply to verbs or to whole sentences, and 
> if you want to weight the meaning toward specific non-verb words in 
> the sentence, you need very special context, and if you have that 
> context, you don’t need to add weight to make the English translation 
> mean something other than what the Klingon sentence actually means, 
> which is either a verb or whole-sentence application of the adverbial.

Did you miss the bit where I said I was using emphasis for illustrative 
purposes only, and that it did NOT represent actual emphasis in the 
sentences? The only point to it was to show  that the interpretation of 
/even/ and /almost/ or *vabDot* and *tlhoS* could change depending on 
which part of the sentence was being treated as the independent variable.

Let's look at a canonical example. *Qo'noS romuluS je boSuqlaH. vabDot 
tera' Qejjbogh DIvI' ram boSuqlaH.*/Kronos, Romulus, and even the puny 
Federation's precious Earth are all up for grabs./ (Klingon Monopoly) 
Look at the *vabDot* here. The focus here is to say /Kronos, Romulus, 
and even Earth!/ If the *vabDot* merely modified the verb, the focus 
would be /VerbX and even acquire!/ That's clearly not what's going on 
here. The *vabDot* acts on the entire sentence to make the noun *tera'* 
stand out.

*vabDot* is just like *je,* except for its placement and the extra 
connotation of unexpectedness. We are told this explicitly. Let's take 
the TKD sentence *qaleghpu' je*/I also saw you, I saw you too./ "As in 
English, the meaning of such sentences is ambiguous: /I and others saw 
you/ or /I saw you and others./ The exact meaning is determined by 
context. Let's replace *je* with *vabDot:* *vabDot qaleghpu'*/Even I saw 
you; I saw even you./ Since we know that *vabDot* is just *je* with the 
extra connotation of unexpectedness, we should be able to see the same 
ambiguity, and we do. Are we focused on the surprise of me /(Even I saw 
you)/ or you /(I saw even you)/? There's an additional possibility which 
TKD doesn't address: *qaleghpu' je*/I also saw you (in addition to doing 
other things to or with you);/ *vabDot qaleghpu'*/I even saw you (in 
addition to doing other things to or with you)./

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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