tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 13 09:15:26 1998
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Re: muD Dotlh...again
- From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: muD Dotlh...again
- Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:15:05 -0500
At 08:24 AM 4/13/98 -0700, SuStel wrote:
>From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
>
>>Assuming {peD} and {SIS} take any subject at all, I'd tend towards {chal}.
>>Experientially, you observe rain or snow falling from somewhere overhead,
>>i.e., from the sky. {muD} seems to me to be more all-encompassing; the
>>atmosphere reaches all the way to the ground. Since rain and snow don't
>>precipitate out of the atmosphere all around us, I don't think {muD} in
>>general would be considered the source of the precipitation.
>
>But this goes against the explanation of {muD Dotlh}. If the correct
>subject were {chal}, wouldn't the phrase be {chal Dotlh}? It's not. One
>never asks another about the condition of the weather at his feet, yet one
>could claim that {muD Dotlh} could mean exactly that. Yet {muD Dotlh} is
>the correct term.
>
If it were foggy out, the weather at one's feet would actually be
relevant.
>Does this make sense:
>
>tlhIngan wa': muD Dotlh nuq?
>tlhIngan cha': SIS chal.
>
Well, yes, it does make sense to me.
>The first Klingon didn't ask for the status of the sky, he asked for the
>status of {muD}. I'm sure he expects the answer to be about {muD}.
>
Not necessarily. {chal} could be considered one of the elements that
makes up the {muD Dotlh}. The answer to a question about the weather
could be a description of whatever elements of the status seem relevant.
eg.,
tlhIngan wa': muD Dotlh nuq?
tlhIngan cha': SIS chal 'ej pe'vIl vIH SuS.
Consider this exchange:
tlhIngan wa': Soj Dotlh nuq?
tlhIngan cha': 'eyqu' qagh 'ach tlhorghHa' targh tIq.
These seem to me very natural exchanges. After all, if a person is
inquiring about the status of something, that person can't include
all the elements of the status in the question, since the questioner
wouldn't necessarily know ahead of time which elements are present.
The questioner about the food, for example, may not know which dishes
are on the table, so can only ask a general question and rely on
the respondant to give the particulars.
-- ter'eS
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711