tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 01 03:15:39 1999

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Re: Qov mu'mey jang pIlo / KLBC



jatlh pI'lo
> Duh! I misspelled my own name! It's pI'lo.

Do'Ha'.

> BTW, I was wondering, how would you differentiate between
> "hibernate" and "coma"? Qongqu' as "to sleep fiercely" just
> sort of bugs me as to do anything fiercely while hibernating
> or being comatose seems like an oxymoron. SaS means "be
> shallow, so does SaSbe' mean "be deep"? I couldn't find
> "deep". Anyway, deep sleep doesn't seem adequate for either
> "coma" as noun/"be comatose" as a verb, or hibernate/
> hibernation. I was thinking of verbal forms to describe
> levels of consciousness (for humorous descriptions of a
> person's level of awareness)

Despite its similarity to the verb <qu'>, <-qu'> does not generally mean
"fiercely". It just intensifies whatever it is modifying. <Qongqu'> seems
kind of weird to me - I'm not sure what <-qu'> would do to <Qong>, and I am
sure whatever it is would not translate into English well. To describe a
deep sleep, I would probably use <Qongchu'>.

For "hibernate", I would probably use one of the following phrases:

Qongchu'
QongtaH
Qongchu'taH
qaStaHvIS DIS poH bIr, QongtaH

As for <SaS>, the "shallow" meaning is slang, and is the kind of "shallow"
that you would use to describe people. It's not a very nice thing to say
about someone.

For "coma", we have a perfect verb: <vul> - "be unconscious". I would
translate "he is in a coma" as <vulchu'taH> or something similar. You could
also add <-qu'> after <-taH> to emphasize the idea that he continues to be
unconscious and nobody knows whether he will wake up.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian



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