tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jun 24 01:46:05 1999

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Re: KLBC: use of <chol>

jatlh runa:
> <HIcholqa'Qo'> jIjatlh.
> [He put his face close to me and laughed.
> "Don't come any closer," I said.]

jIjatlh:
> Nice use of <-qa'>.


jatlh peHruS:
> runavaD jangpu' pagh, jatlh: Nice use of <-qa'>. 'ach jIQoch jIH. naDev
> aspect mojaq {-lI'} mojaq {-taH} qoj vIchup. "Resume doing something that
> has temporarily stopped," "start doing something again" qoj 'oS mojaq
> {-qa'} qar'a'?

> yIpojqa'.

vIpojqa'ta', 'ej jIlughbejtaH.

muchol qabDaj. Hagh. <HIcholqa'Qo'> jIjatlh.
His face approached me. He laughed. "Do not resume coming closer", I said.

qay' nuq?

Both the English and the Klingon here describe the events very clearly to
me. The unnamed, rather threatening person approached the subject. He got
very close, and leaned in with his face. He *stopped* and laughed. At this
point, the subject was very nervous, even afraid. He could probably feel the
breath of the threatening person on his face. He could certainly smell him.
The subject said "don't come any closer".

The moving closer is not a continuous thing happening throughout the whole
scene. If it were, I would expect to see "He was putting his face closer to
me", "His face was approaching mine", or something similarly awkward, and I
would have expected to see a <-lI'> on the *first* <chol> in the Klingon,
and maybe on the <Hagh> as well. Besides - if he'd been continously closing
in, the two people involved would probably have bumped heads somewhere in
the middle of <HIcholqa'Qo'>, and the whole thing would have been very
silly, and not threatening at all. Instead, we have just "He put his face
close to me" and <muchol qabDaj>. This makes much more sense.

After the threatening person stopped advancing and laughed, the subject told
him not to come any closer - not to resume approaching. This is *exactly*
what the suffix <-qa'> describes.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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