tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 06 16:48:45 1998
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Re: Exercises?
- From: Robyn Stewart <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Exercises?
- Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 16:42:00 -0700 (PDT)
---David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Robyn Stewart <[email protected]>
> >---Matthew Peperell <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'd like to point out something which I think confuses some
beginners. The
> first of Qov's sentences, {rejey}, has been translated with three
possible
> tenses. This is not to say that you choose the tense you mean.
{rejey}
> carries absolutely no information about tense at all. It doesn't
"think of
> itself" in any tense, no matter what your intentions.
>
> {wa'Hu' rejey}: Adding {wa'Hu'} does NOT make {rejey} a past-tense
verb.
> {rejey} still has no tense associated with it. Rather, you're
giving a time
> context which is being associated with a completely tenseless action.
>
> Consider:
>
> "Yesterday: we-you defeating."
>
> This pseudo-sentence mentions a time ("yesterday"), the people
involved
> ("we-you") and the action ("defeating", or "defeat"). "Defeating"
by itself
> does not say anything about when "defeating" takes place. It might be
> later, it might be earlier, or it might be right now. But even if you
> decide what *you* mean, the word "defeating" doesn't suddenly mean
anything
> more than it did before.
>
> "We-you defeating."
>
> This has no tense associated with it.
>
> {rejey} doesn't mean "we will defeat you/we defeat you/we defeated
you" so
> much as it means "we-you defeating." The former seems to imply that
there
> is a choice of tenses. There is not. There is no tense involved
with the
> verb. "We-you defeating" is closer to the meaning, though it's not
good
> English and we cannot usually translate in this way.
>
> Did this make sense to anybody?
Sure. The more angles of attack on this question the better. It's
been asked twice in two days.
It's very difficult to convey the feeling of a grammar that doesn't
match the one you are using, without giving the impression that the
language being decribed is baby talk, or tolerates ungrammatical
constructions.
==
Qov - Beginners' Grammarian
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