tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 09 11:38:55 1994

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Re: Qaghqoq



> jatlhta' Guido#1
> 
> Klingon does not have any sort of tense. 

Well, Klingon doesn't mark tense syntactically.  {wa'leS qaHoH} 
certainly means "I will kill you tomorrow."  

> Saying "He is foolish" in English
> *would* imply that he is acting like a fool right now, and may not generally
> act that way all the time, but in Klingon {Dogh} means "he/she/it
> is/was/will-always-be foolish".
              ^^^^^^
How do you get "always" here?  It seems to me that we can be more 
specific, perhaps with "DoghtaH" or "DoghlI'."

> {DoghtaH/DoghlI'} means he is in the process of
> doing so. [making a fool of himself]. 

Both indicate that an activity is on-going, but {-lI'} "...implies 
that the activity has a...definite stopping point."  (p. 42).  {-taH} 
on the other hand implies that the activity does not have a stopping 
point, and thus (IMHO) gives the reading you are looking for.

> In either of those cases, it is not as derogatory as saying that he
> is a fool in general, in which case the tenseless {Dogh} should suffice.

Why choose ambiguity over clarity, especially when the language (in 
this case {{:) ) gives a nice solution?

> Guido#1

Holtej



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