tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 12 21:05:11 1998
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Re: KLBC Poetry
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC Poetry
- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:59:59 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, January 12, 1998 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: KLBC Poetry
>ja' edy:
>>>> He botlhDaq nagh tu'lu'pu'
>>>> There was a stone in the middle of the way
>
>jang Qov:
>>>This says "there HAD BEEN a stone in the middle of the way." That
>>>is, at the time under consideration, the stone is no longer there.
>>>Is that what you are trying to express, or do you want to talk about
>>>the time when the stone was still there?
>
>I don't think {-pu'} has to imply that it isn't there anymore, but it
>certainly implies that the important idea is that its being there has
>already happened.
Completely literally, (that is, considering {tu'lu'} to refer to someone's
discovering something), the sentence means something like "Someone found a
rock in the middle of the road; this discovery is already complete as of the
time of the sentence." This doesn't say anything about whether the rock is
still there or not, it just means that the discovery is complete.
If {tu'lu'} is to be considered an existential construction (or is that
presuppositional? I can never remember), then the sentence is closer to
"Someone found a rock in the middle of the road; it's being there is already
complete as of the time of the sentence." This implies that the rock is no
longer there at this time, since the being there is complete.
{tu'lu'} is a funny word, and can be interpreted in many ways. However,
{-pu'} (and {-ta'}) DOES mean that the action is complete, not just that it
occurred before the time context.
SuStel
Stardate 98034.0