tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 16 22:53:49 1995
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Re: easy sentences
On Mon, 16 Jan 1995, charghwI' wrote:
...
> > 3. The children are asleep.
> > Qong(choH) puqpu'.
>
> The {-choH} would indicate that the children just fell asleep.
> Otherwise, {QongtaH puqpu'} might serve well enough.
I know that this has been previously discused (and possibly even concluded)
here, but I am still confused. QongtaH does not seem accurate to me.
QonglI' seems like the word that should be used. (BTW, I believe that
charghwI' would agree that Qong puqpu' is not incorrect.) Looking over
TKD p.42 s.4.2.7:Aspect, I am still confused.
The discussion given seems to indicate that -taH is an unintentional
continuation and -lI' is an intentional continuation (theory #1). Some
of the examples, OTOH, imply that -taH means, "who knows when it's going
to stop," and -lI' means, "we know when it's going to stop," (theory
#2). I was particularly intrigued by Okrand's first example for each
suffix.
Let's look at nughoStaH and nuchollI'! nughoS seems to translate as, "it
is coming towards us," and nuchol as, "it is coming near us." So one is
on a collision course and one may or may not be, but IS coming very
close. By theory #1, if we were talking about a Federation ship while we
were cloaked, nughoStaH might imply, "they don't see us and they're going
to ram right into us if we don't do something." In this same
circumstance, nuchollI' might imply, "they seem to have spotted us and
are circling for a better look." Using theory #2, nuchollI' could either
imply that they are slowing and we can calculate where they will stop, or
that we can calculate where they will be closest and after that, they
will be going away instead of coming near. nughoStaH, OTOH, now becomes
meaningless, since if it is coming towards us we can all guess the
stopping point. Theory #1 seems to win this argument. But theory #2
resurfaces when you realize that yIjuntaH can not possibly mean, "take
unintentional evasive action!" What am I missing here.
Under any circumstance, QonglI' seems better, as I think we can safely
assume that they fell asleep intentionally and are expected to wake up in
the morning.
...
> SuS HoSqu'mo' maDo'Ha'.
>
> "Because of strong wind, we were unlucky."
Putting the sentence in this order, shouldn't the -mo' be on the noun.
The sentence implies that it was because of the existence of the wind,
rather than it's strength, that we were unlucky.
janSIy }}:+D>