[tlhIngan Hol] expressing "especially"

SuStel sustel at trimboli.name
Fri Oct 15 06:05:10 PDT 2021


On 10/15/2021 8:02 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> I remember that the need for expressing "especially" came when I saw a 
> sentence saying something like:
>
> "This god was especially a god of .."
>
> And I couldn't quite understand what the actual meaning was. So the 
> need came to find a way to express "especially" in the same unclear 
> and unspecific way. I thought "if the original is unclear, then the 
> translation should be unclear too". So I said to myself "translate it 
> in a similar unclear way, and good luck to the reader figuring out 
> what the actual meaning is; as if anyone is ever going to read the 
> klingon translation anyway..".
>
> So I did it using the {-chu'}, in a manner similar to the sentence 
> that I wrote in the initial post:
>
> "he is a god of rain, thunder, and especially hurricanes"
> {SISmoH tuDmoH 'ej vungmoHchu' Qunvam}

In this case, the word /especially/ is about emphasis or focus on the 
part of the god.

*SISmoH Qunvam 'ej tuDmoH, 'ach vungmoH 'e' buS.
*/This god makes it rain and thunder, but he/she focuses on making 
hurricanes./
**


> nIqolay Q:
> > Or one with somewhat more controversial grammar:
> > nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' novpu' rIymuSnganpu''e' je
> > "Thalaran radiation is a weapon, aliens and especially Remans use it."
>
> I really really *really* like this! But why do you characterize its' 
> grammar as controversial? I can't find something weird in the grammar 
> of this sentence.

I don't think it works. This says /Aliens and REMANS (as opposed to 
anyone else) use it./ *-'e'* makes a subject or object exclusive 
participants in the verb, but how do you make *rImuSnganpu'* exclusive 
when they're sharing the subject role with *novpu'?*

In general, I don't believe you can mix *-'e'*-marked nouns with 
non-marked nouns in the same syntactic role.


> And reading your suggestion, I got another idea too:
>
> nuH 'oH thalaron woj'e', lulo' nov, 'ej lulo' je rIymuSngan'e'
>
> I hadn't ever thought of the possibility of using the {-'e'} with the 
> {je} "too", but I think that perhaps it could be another nice way of 
> expressing "especially".

I think this fails for the same basic reason, though this time I have no 
syntactic objection to it. The objection is purely semantic. In this 
case, I would read it as something like "Aliens use it. Indeed, REMANS 
use it," as if you were drilling down through all the aliens that use it 
to demonstrate that Remans do, in fact, use it. This wouldn't say 
anything about Remans using it more.


-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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