tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 09 10:17:35 1996
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Re: existence
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>Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 00:43:06 -0700
>From: "A.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
>For "X exists" we have been advised to write {X tu'lu'}, on the grounds that
>"X's existence can't be known of unless someone has found it". But to say
>"Theory shows that X exists, but nobody has yet found it"? This construction
>occurs referring to a very important central matter in a story that I have.
It's sort of like in English, I can say "There is a prime number greater
than 60,000." But if you say "OK, you say it's there... WHERE is it then?
Show me!" I can't answer. Just because the word "there" is in the sentence
doesn't mean I'm talking about a location. Similarly, "tu'lu'" can mean
"it's there to be found..." Life on Mars, say it exists, is "found" by
itself or a hypothetical observer. That doesn't mean anyone we know of has
found it. You can say "ngermo' X tu'lu', 'ach wej 'oH Samlu'" (using
Sam/seek and find as a sort of stronger form of finding to avoid making it
sound like a contradiction). or "'ach wej 'oH tu' vay'." Technically you
could use "tu'lu'" in both places, but I can see why you wouldn't want to.
- From the canon we've seen, and the heavy use of "tu'lu'" for "there is," it
seems that "tu'lu'" has both a literal meaning (something finds it) and an
idiomatic meaning (it's there).
~mark
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