tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 01 20:18:13 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Vowels
>Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 21:53:55 -0500
>From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>
>ja' peHruS:
>>*telegrams ngeHmeH motlh loS mI'mey lo' China'nganpu'. chovnatlh vI'ang:
>>mu' {wo3} 'oS mI' 2053 'ej mu' {da4} 'oS mI' 1129. vaj wo3 da4 mu'tlhegh
>>moj. tlhIngan Hol vImughDI' {jItIn} lu'oS.
>
>jImIS. mu'mey 'oSbogh patHeyvam vIyajbe'chu'.
>
>"wo3" ngaj law' "2053" ngaj puS. jatlhmeH "wo3" DuH law' "2053" DuH puS!
>qatlh "wo3 da4" ghItlhbe'lu'? qatlh QatlhmoHbogh pat wIvlu'?
"wo3" puS lutu'lu' (chaq). *China-Hol qellu'DI', pIj mu' puS 'oS wa'
QIch. wa' mu' neH 'oH "2053"'e'.
>>qep'a' javDIchDaq China'ngan Hol jatlhlaH je MO 'e' vItu'. chobDaq
>>matay'taHvIS MO pemla' jIH je, China'ngan Hol wIlo'pu'.
>
>'ach chobDaq Sutay'taHqu'vIS, Holvetlh bolo''a'?
>
>In case you don't realize it, I'm asking if you used it *while* you were
>in the corridor. What you said was that while you were in the corridor,
>you *had* used it. It makes it sound a lot like when you were together
>in the hallway, speaking Chinese was complete. The meaning I assume you
>want and the grammatical implications of what you wrote are at odds with
>one another.
Don't be *too* hasty, though. Yes, in this case you're right, but I could
easily see, in isolation or another setting, {chobDaq jIHtaHvIS tlhIngan
Hol vIlo'pu'} to mean "I have used Klingon while standing in a hallway."
The {-pu'} is perfective in aspect, and the time setting is provided by
context... but context is an inherently ambiguous critter. The -taHvIS
clause might be providing it, or maybe it's provided by the still larger
context around it, or the context of the here-and-now. That is, the {-pu'}
might have its scope limited by the -taHvIS clause, or it may belong to a
larger environment. I believe this ambiguity is consistent with natural
language use and what we know about Klingon.
~mark