tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 11 11:30:08 1998
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Re: poH qelDI' tlhIngan Hol mu'tlheghmey
>Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 13:32:08 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Robyn Stewart" <[email protected]>
>
>I do not believe that Klingon verb conjunctions carry the idea of
>passing time the way that English ones often do. Most of this idea
>has been explained and thoroughly backed with canon. I wish to add
>one thing, to clear some possible confusion. The sentences joined by
>'ej CAN have different time contexts, it's just that {'ej} doesn't
>seem to suggest the time context or cause relationships the way "and"
>can.
{'ej} doesn't imply or forbid time-sequences _by itself_... but then I
don't see that "and" does in English, on the whole. In "I ate and was
satisfied," the sequence is there, yes, but not implied by the "and": it's
implied by the meaning of what we were talkking about. {jISop 'ej jIyon}
(possible stretch of {yon} to a more specific meaning) is perfectly
acceptable, and in no way implies that my satisfaction happened before or
at the time of my eating, no more than the English does. "I sent the
letter and you got it" has ordering, but the "and" isn't what caused the
ordering. {jabbI'ID vIlab 'ej DaHev} is completely fine. Where were we
told that {'ej} says anything, one way or another, about time-sequences?
For that matter, when were we told that "and" does? "I came by bus and you
came by train": the actions could be simultaneous, or they may have
happened in either order. We don't know, because "and" DOESN'T TELL US,
and there's nothing else in the sentence which does. I see no reason to
believe {'ej} works any differently. If {'ej} were specific as to
time-sequence, I think Okrand would have said so; that's an important
point.
~mark
`