tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 23 20:00:59 1997
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RE: KLBC baby story, corrected + Q's
gItlhpu' tIm:
>> What I wanted to say was, "He is just begining to learn to talk. The third
>> verb made it difficult. <DaH ghojchoH jatlh>?
ghItlh SuStel:
>This requires a sentence-as-object form, as described in TKD section 6.2.5.
>
>jatlh 'e' ghojchoH
>He begins to learn to speak.
>
>The first sentence is {jatlh} "He speaks." The second is {'e' ghojchoH} "He
>begins to learn that," where the {'e'} "that" is a pronoun substituting for
>the entire first sentence.
This makes it literally "he begins to learn that he speaks," which isn't
the same thing in my mind as "he begins to learn to speak." I've seen
sentence-as-object used like this a lot, but I think a purpose clause is
a more appropriate way to express this meaning.
{jatlhmeH ghojchoH} "He starts to learn in order to speak."
Another example troubled me a lot a while ago: "Don't forget to write."
The suggested {bIghItlh 'e' yIlIjQo'} says to me "Don't forget that you
write" which seems to say "remember the fact that you write." I'd have
said {bIghItlhnIS 'e' yIlIjQo'} "Don't forget that you have to write"
or {bIghItlhmeH yIqaw} "Remember to write."
-- ghunchu'wI'