tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 02 23:47:15 2002
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Re: of a certain age
- From: SuSvaj <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: of a certain age
- Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 00:18:10 -0500
KFGT, page 211: ben - "Years old"
At 06:40 AM 04/01/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>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/
>
>