tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Apr 29 17:07:28 1995
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Re: jIchegh: marqem
Fri, 28 Apr 1995 ghItlh marqem:
> marqem jIpong'egh. <Mark Mandel> mupong tera'nganpu'.
> cha'ben ghomvamDaq jItaH, 'a wa'ben muyapbe'choHDI' poH
> SatlheDnISpu'.
> DaH ghom QaQqu'vaD poH vIghajqa', vaj jIchegh, 'ej vIQuch.
DaH ghomma'Daq jIcheghlaHmo' jIbel. QaQqu' tlhIngan Hol laHlIj 'e' vItu'.
> And now over to English for a problem that I know has been raised
> before (I don't remember whether in tlhIngan-Hol or in HolQed),
> but I don't remember any resolution: the ambiguity of "wej". The
> last bit above is meant to mean "but we don't make Klingon systems
> yet", but can equally well be understood as meaning "but we make
> three Klingon systems". (As I recall, the question was raised
> with the sentence "wej vIlegh": VERY bad if said by a sentry
> watching for the enemy, and misunderstood!) Surely the language
> can't tolerate such ambiguity. How can it handle it?
The easiest way I can think of to distingish the two is, when you are
using {wej} to mean "three", add a word indicating a time or use some
other adverbial, like {tugh} or {SIbI'}.
Of course this doesn't work if you ARE using {wej} to mean "not yet".
> Mark A. Mandel
yoDtargh