tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 29 12:27:04 1999
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Re: najlu'chu'DI'
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: najlu'chu'DI'
- Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 14:26:27 CST
- In-reply-to: Your message of Sun, 28 Nov 1999 21:39:10 -0500
ja'pu' pagh:
> > najlu'chu'DI', wanI' Dun law' yuch Dun puS.
jIja':
> >this is really bugging me :(
> >
> >the way I'd interpret sentences like this is:
> >"the event (whatever it may be) is better than chocolate,
> >but this statement is true only at those times when one
> >dreams perfectly"
ja' ghunchu'wI':
> I don't understand what's bugging you about it. The event is obviously
> the one that was just mentioned, i.e. dreaming perfectly. If I wanted
> to give a "conditional" meaning to the idea, I'd use {-chugh} instead of
> {-DI'}.
>
what's bugging me is that this usage of -DI' so closely parallels
the usage of the English "when" (I'm not complaining about the
precedent "najlu'chu'" being the obvious point of reference for
"wanI'")
to me, the -DI'-clause restricts the validity of the main clause
to those times the condidtion in the temporal clause is met;
the -chugh-clause on the other hand, means that at the time of
uttering the whole ... ahm ... "Klumbatsch", you are not sure
whether or not the condition of the conditional clause is met.
e.g. bInajchu'chugh in my mind classifies people into two categories:
those that dream perfectly and the rest. I don't know which class
"you" belongs to but I make a statement that is valid for those
that belong to the first class.
while bInajchu'DI' classifies temporal space into two subsets:
those times when you dream perfectly and other times. the
statement of the main sentence is true at times in the first class.
both kinds of restricitions don't make any prediction about
what happens to the "other class".
quite probably, though, Klingon works just like English in this
regard - which is more or less what bugs me :)
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]