tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 22 09:25:24 1997
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Re: vegh
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: vegh
- Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:24:59 -0400 (EDT)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "SuSvaj" at Jul 22, 97 08:08:51 am
This has been a good discussion on vegh. I've wanted to respond
to every post on it, but held back and noted that someone else
has said just about everything I wanted to say, except:
According to SuSvaj:
>
> >I'm puzzled by this last example: does the woman actually "touch" the forest
> >as she walks through it?
>
> I don't think that whether or not the woman touches the trees is the issue.
I agree.
> the issue is whether or not the object that the woman is going through is
> meant to be gone through.
I think this works up to a point, but the missing element from
my own perspective is that {vegh} is intended for use only with
passages through some sort of openning. I did not make up the
example of a person going through a forest. Okrand explicitly
said that {vegh} did NOT apply in that case.
He was asked for a verb to mean "go through" with a wide range
of things one might go through, including going through a
forest, an arrow (or bullet or whatever) going through a heart,
going through a window. He responded that he heard at least
three different verbs there. One of those was the piercing verb
he did not give us (though {DuQchu'} would do in a pinch). The
other he did not give us was the forest verb (which frankly
would likely be handled by {ghoS}).
The result is that of the three, he gave us the most productive
verb. We had no way to say this before, unless we cast the
focus onto the space beyond the opening. Now we can say {lojmIt
vIvegh} instead of {pa'vetlh vI'elmeH lojmIt vIlo'.} I might
also stretch the old construction to {pa'vetlh vI'elmeH lojmIt
vIghoS.} Still, if I want to talk about what I did to the door
instead of what I did to the room, I didn't really have a way
to do that well.
Now, the guard can easily yell: {lojmItvetlh yIveghQo'!}
Or better yet he can say to a prisoner who is hesitant to go
back to his cell:
bIveghbe'chugh vaj bIHegh!
[heh, heh]
> SuSvaj
charghwI'