tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 16 12:32:13 1999
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Re: mu'meywIj tetlh
William H. Martin wrote:
>
> I wonder if the noun {wanI'} can help us handle the lack of time
> related relative pronoun. Consider:
>
> pawmeH paq wanI' vISov.
>
> Two interpretations:
>
> In order that the book arrives, I know the event.
>
> I know the in-order-that-the-book-arrives event.
>
> We can't tell whether the {-meH} clause is modifying the noun
> {wanI'} or the verb {Sov} here, and frankly, it doesn't make
> much difference.
>
> So if you "know" an event, what could you possibly know? It
> would be different from {paw paq 'e' vISov} "I know that the
> book arrives." What you know is an event. An event is a time
> related thing. Compare {wanI'} and {ghu'} and you see that the
> main difference between them is that {wanI'} relates to the time
> that a situation occurs and {ghu'} relates to the substance of
> the situation with no time reference.
>
I just can't see this. Knowing of the existence of an event doesn't
equate to knowing when it occurs, in my mind. Trying to think of a
recasting for this particular sentence, I recalled a phrase that Okrand
used on a Skybox card (I think) not too long ago, about when a Klingon
youth becomes an adult. So, how about
/wa' jaj paq chu' wIHev. jajvam vISov./
It seems to me that Okrand used /wa' jaj/ basically to mean, 'on a
certain
day', which seems to fit this usage pretty well.
I certainly agree with charghwI' that the solution to our lack of
relative
adverbs is to recast. It's just hard sometimes to figure out what terms
to apply.
-- ter'eS