tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 19 09:35:06 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: -lu'



Marc Ruehlaender writes:
\ marqoS:
\ > 	batlh lIqawtaH	vay'	Someone will remember you with honor 
\ > 	batlh Daqawlu'taH	You will be remembered with honor 

\ Hmm, maybe that this is a misunderstanding, due to
\ English not being my native language, but couldn't
\ vay' be interpreted as "anybody" in the first sentence?
That's a good point; I keep forgetting the "anyone, anything" translation
of "vay'".  

\ With the explanation of lu' in TKD (s.o. does s.th. to s.o.)
\ this would reverse the meaning of the two examples you
\ give, wouldn't it?
I wouldn't go that far, but it certainly narrows the canonical support for
my opinion on the difference between them.

\ But anyway, even if -lu' and vay' mean the same,
\ I think vay' is the only way to express an unspecified
\ OBJECT, or could you simply us the ...-it prefixes?
You can always leave the subject and/or object "unspecified" and rely on 
the prefixes, but this is different from vay', which lets you explicitly
specify that the subject or object is unspecified, if you catch my meaning.
It is precisely the difference between "Someone does something to something."
and "He does something to it." in English.

-marqoS


--
Mark J. Reed
Email: [email protected] - Voice: +1 404 315 6296 x158 - Fax: +1 404 315 0293
SecureWare, Inc. / 2957 Clairmont Rd Suite 200 / Atlanta GA 30329-1647



Back to archive top level