tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 02 06:46:10 2002
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
of a certain age
- From: "Sean M. Burke" <[email protected]>
- Subject: of a certain age
- Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 06:40:37 -0700
As I catching up on list mail, I see that there was some discussion a few
days ago that involved how one should express the idea of being X years
(etc) old, including whether {ben} ("ago") could be used for this.
So, was the question of how to say "be X years old" ever settled?
It occurs to me that one could make do with {ben} and a repertory of verbs
referring to when the person/thing came into existence. ("be born", "was
created", "was written", etc.). Or one could use a verb referring to the
continued existence, maybe even something generic like {taH}:
{'ar poH taHpu' targhHomlij?} {loS Hogh taHpu'!}
("How long has your targlet survived/lived?" "She has survived four weeks.")
(Or is there a better word for 'how long [of a duration]'? {'ar-nI'} maybe?
{'ar poH}?)
Or something more periphrastic:
{'ar DIS ghaj taj?} {cha' DIS ghaj.}
("How many years goes the knife have?" "It has two years.")
or even
{'ar DIS tebpu' taj?} {cha' DIS tebpu'.}
("How many years has the knife filled/completed?" "It has
filled/completed two years.")
--
Sean M. Burke [email protected] http://www.spinn.net/~sburke/