tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 31 17:55:25 2000
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Re: KliFlash [Was: Re: tlhIngan Hol pojwI' 2.0]
I'd like to add my voice to that of the stodgy traditionalists. :-)
ja' SuStel:
>ret yaH lon.
>Some unspecified time period ago, he abandoned his post.
>
>ben law' yaH lon.
>A few years ago, he abandoned his post.
>
>My impression is that the first sentence is unacceptable to the experts on
>the list, while the second is all right. I fail to understand why.
The difference is in the "unqualified" nature of {ret} and {pIq}.
>The sentence which occurs is {yaH lon} "He abandons his post." In the
>apparently acceptable one, a "timestamp" is added: {ben law'}. As Marc
>Okrand explains, the time at which the action occurs (which typically is
>expressed with a noun, though there are exceptions) is added to the
>beginning of a sentence (just like any noun which isn't subject or object).
>
>So why is {ben law'} superior to {ret}? They're both pretty vague. You at
>least know the order of magnitude you're talking about with {ben law'}, but
>nothing else. Would {ben yaH lon} be acceptable? "Years ago he abandoned
>his post"?
The first sentence is so vague as to be essentially meaningless. I
see it as referring to "some unspecified number of unspecified time
periods ago". A naked {ret} is as unpalatable to me as the English
word "ago" without further qualification, and I consider it just as
ungrammatical.
I also don't much care for the second sentence (even if you fix the
{law'} "few" mismatch one way or the other), but I do accept it for
what it is -- a vague quantification of a known time period. As for
{ben yaH lon}, it's probably grammatically correct, but that doesn't
automatically mean it's "acceptable".
>I believe it is the bias of the list which has made this declaration. Years
>of familiarity with {ben}, {Hu'}, {nem}, and {leS} have made certain
>"accepted" phrases come into common parlance. Then something else like
>these new words comes along, and if they don't match the familiar pattern,
>they're not accepted.
These new words *absolutely* do not match the familiar pattern. They
have only been explained in terms of accompanying a definition of the
period of time with which they are used: "These words follow the more
specific time units." (Okrand, HolQeD v8n3, p3)
>{ben law'} is not any better than {ben}.
It's probably no more grammatically correct, but it's certainly "better"
semantically. It at least *tries* to quantify the number of years.
>And if {ben} is acceptable, then so must {ret} be.
Here I must disagree. Even if leaving the number of time periods out
is acceptable, {ret} and {pIq} are described in a way that does not make
it obvious that they "must" be grammatical when used alone.
>And so on. {ret yaH lon} is a perfectly acceptable, if
>vague, sentence. Sticking {ret} or {pIq} in front of a sentence is
>equivalent to saying "in the past" or "in the future," respectively. The
>original poster was not creating new grammar at all, but using a logical
>extension of an already accepted grammar.
I think the "logical extension" fails because of the unproven assumption
that {ben} and {ret} behave similarly.
>Note that this is NOT grammatical
>tense. Grammatical tense would incorporate tense into the grammar--hence
>the name. This is the same form of time labeling as any other time noun.
>
>That said, it's always preferable to state the time context of a sentence
>precisely.
On that point, at least, you will find little dissent.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh