tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 22 09:09:25 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: vegh
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: vegh
- Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:08:23 -0500 (CDT)
DloraH wrote:
> This word does NOT work for:
> The bullet went through his heart.
> His fist went through the wall.
> Notice that in these examples the subject physically touches the object;
> the bullet touched the heart as it went through it.
> The bird going through an open window doesn't touch anything.
charghwI' wrote:
> Note that this does mean:
> A man goes through an open door, a bird goes through an open
> window or a woman goes through a tunnel.
> Note that it explicitly does NOT mean:
> A man's fist goes through a closed door, an arrow goes through a
> bird's heart or a woman goes through a forest.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I commented:
:> I'm puzzled by this last example: does the woman actually "touch" the forest
:> as she walks through it?
Susvaj replied:
: I don't think that whether or not the woman touches the trees is the issue.
DloraH--who heard the explanation from Okrand at qep'a'--raised the whole
issue of touching: {vegh} can not, it seems, be used for "penetrate" or
"puncture".
Susvaj again:
: As for a woman walking through a forest, my
: impression is that "vegh" can be used here, as the woman is not damaging
: the forest. Particularly if there is some kind of pre-existing path which
: she is following.
No. charghwI'--who was also present at qep'a'--tells us this usage is
specifically NOT allowed which is what puzzled me. Yesterday ghunchu'wI' (as
leader of the victorious team that requested the word from Okrand) posted
his own account which considerable clarifies the issue:
ghunchu'wI':
> Anyway, as you've read by now, we requested the verb "go through", and
> we provided four sentences to Marc as examples of what we meant. As it
> turns out, there are at least three different concepts that fit what we
> use "go through" for in English, and we had to choose the one we wanted.
> The choices were "the bullet goes through the man's heart", "the hunter
> goes through the forest", and "the train goes through the tunnel", with
> the last one being the same idea as "the bird goes through the window."
> So we asked for "the bird _goes through_ the window" and we received the
> verb {vegh}. This does not apply if the window is closed, however; that
> seems to be yet another concept.
As I now understand it, {vegh} refers to going through tunnels (even
EXTREMELY compressed tunnels like doorways or windows) or other openings.
So, it seems that although we can't use it for walking through a forest,
crossing a desert, passing through town or flying through open space, we can
use it when going through a wormhole, falling through the event horizon of a
black hole or passing through those ubiquitous subspace and temporal anomalies.
Or have I still missed something?
Voragh