tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 25 18:38:44 1998
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Re: poH qelDI' tlhIngan Hol mu'tlheghmey
ja' Voragh:
>For those stubborn few who still insist that {'ej} implies *only*
>synchronicity and never sequence, reversing the order of clauses in a
>sentence should have no effect whatsoever on the meaning. But it often
>does. For example:
>
> teplIj yIwoH 'ej pa'lIjDaq yIjaH!
> Pick up your baggage and go to your room! (CK)
>
>implies an obvious sequence of events (at least to me), whereas
>
> pa'lIjDaq yIjaH 'ej teplIj yIwoH!
> Go to your room and pick up your baggage!
>
>makes no sense at all if you and your luggage are both in the lobby.
It makes no sense only if you interpret {'ej} to mean "and then". I
have no problem with it as a pair of commands, simultaneous or not, in
either order.
>...Or imagine a Klingon mother telling her rambunctious child that dinner
>is ready:
>
> yIba'choH 'ej qagh yISop!
> Sit down and eat your gagh!
>
>This is something quite different from
>
> qagh yISop 'ej yIba'choH!
> Eat your qagh and sit down!
>
>which may be more appropriate if you're advising someone to sit down as an
>aide to digestion after eating a rushed meal, say, while standing in a
>crowded {Do Qe'}. In these cases, translating {'ej} by "and then" or simply
>"then" is quite acceptable. But when you can successfully reverse the
>clauses with no loss in meaning, you cannot translate {'ej} "and then".
The "loss in meaning" you are talking about *only* happens if you translate
{'ej} as "and then". If you don't read a sequence meaning into the first
phrase, you don't lose anything in the second one.
-- ghunchu'wI'