Hans Christian Andersen

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson>]

Only one note, I'm running late:

>.i ko'a djica lo nolraixli   .i ri mulno
>beloka nolraixli be'o jo se zanru beko'a

I don't like {ko'a djica lo nolraixli}; I see a cleft-place problem here.
You {djica} an event, not a person.  Nick had fun with this when he decided
that dikyjvo were too restrictive, coming up with places for {ponsydjica}.
Similarly with {nitcu}.  You don't need soap, you need *the
event/state/etc. of your having soap*.  There's a difference.  So I'd use
{ko'a djica tu'a lo nolraixli}.

I note in passing that "need"/nitcu in Okrand's Klingon is not a verb in
itself, but a suffix to be attached to the verb.  Thus, you can only "need"
a *sentence*/predication, not an object.  Other suffixes are also there
(e.g. I find no verb "to refuse".  There's an exclamation "I refuse!" in
general, but to ask "did he refuse?" you must ask "did he refuse to do x?",
using the refusal suffix Qo'.)

~mark