tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 09 11:41:28 1999

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RE: KLBG: extra nouns, locative or what?



At 08:46 PM 8/8/99 -0500, John wrote:
>

>> wa'Hu' ram *Blair Witch Project* vIlegh, 'ej ramvam jIQongvIpbej.
>> "I saw BWP last night, and that night was afraid to go to sleep."
>>

>Hmm, but it says =this= night I was afraid to sleep (delayed reaction?).
>Wouldn't you say in that example {ramvetlh} for "that (the one I was just
>talking about) night" ?
>
Well, maybe.  You'll note I didn't add the perfective {-ta'} to the
verb either, and to me, both points are related.  When I encounter a
time stamp {wa'Hu' ram}, this puts me mentally into that time.  So
I wrote {vIlegh} and not *{vIleghta'}, because from my imaginary
time context of last night, I am seeing the movie ({vIleghta'} would
state that, as of last night, I had already seen it).  So, I used
{ramvam} because, from my time context of last night, it is this
same night that I'm talking about: "(Last night) I see the movie, and
on this night (that I'm discussing), I can't sleep."  On the other 
hand, this is just my impression, and I could be wrong about it.
  
>IOW, I don't see how {ramvam} can mean anything other than "tonight", or
>when two anteceedents are involved (this one and that one).
>
{ramvam} could mean 'tonight', 'tomorrow night' or 'last night', 
depending on the time context.

(BTW, FWIW, AFAIK I've never seen IOW before. 8+) )

-- ter'eS



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