tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 10 07:40:00 1994

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Re: A poem



charghwI' writes:
\ According to David Trimboli:
\ Welcome back! My alarm just went off and I have to go now. I
\ have only one initial observation:
\ 
\ > "qaSchoHpu' may'"
\ 
\ This means, "The battle changes to have completed happening."
\ In other words, it is now over. It just finished. Drop the
\ {-pu'} and I think you will have what you want. "The battle
\ begins to happen." Your poem has nothing to do with the
\ completion of the battle, so the perfective is not what you
\ want. I know that you intend to apply the perfective to
\ {-choH}, but that's not how it works. Both the perfective and
\ {-choH} apply themselves to the main verb. You are saying that
\ the verb is complete in its action and this involves a change
\ of state. If anything, it emphasizes completion as being
\ different from the action that preceeded it.

Uhm, that's one interpretation, but I don't think it's necessarily
the [only] correct one.  My impression of the verb suffixes is that they are
ordered because they get applied in that order, conceptually.  
"qaSchoHpu'" to me means that the changing-to-happen is complete, not that
 the happening is changing to be complete . . .

Of course, some form with "tagh" might be a better way to convey the idea: 

	qaS 'e' tagh may' 	"the battle begins to happen"

That may not quite work, but I also have a dearth of time to look at it 
right now . . .

-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



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