tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 01 13:21:24 2000

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Re: obtuse question



[ben loDnal]

Sustel:
>Unless there's context to the contrary, I think the natural implication
>would be that the husband is no longer a husband.

jIH:
>jIQoch.  <cha'vatlh ben HIq> yIqel.

Sustel:
>UNLESS THERE'S CONTEXT TO THE CONTRARY!!

jIQochtaH.  As I tried to make clear before, I don't see an implication of
"former" in {ben Doch}.  *I* think that, absent context, it just says
something about how long the thing has been what it is.

I'm not contradicting, just disagreeing.

>I'm not saying that when one puts some age on a noun, that noun is no longer
>that noun.  I'm not making some general rule.   <-----KEY SENTENCE.
>
>I'm saying that in the single case, mind you, the SINGLE CASE of speaking of
>a husband or wife, and modifying the noun for husband or wife by another
>noun phrase which means "X many years ago," I (me, personally, and, I think,
>and this is just me thinking, most people) would tend to interpret that as a
>spouse who is no longer a spouse, since otherwise you'd use a noun phrase as
>a "timestamp" for the sentence, not as a modifier to the spouse.

I see it in exactly the opposite way.  I would tend to interpret a
time-stamped sentence as referring to the event, and a "time-referenced"
noun as referring to the state of the noun (in whatever time context is
implied).  So -- again, based heavily on the {cha'vatlh ben HIq} example --
a "three years ago husband" implies to me that the person in question *is*
a husband, and has been one for three years.

>In any case, this argument is pretty silly anyway, since /cha' ben loDnal/
>would probably be generally interpreted as "two year old husband"!  Klingons
>age quickly, but this is ridiculous!

Here I *am* going to contradict you.  {ben} doesn't mean "years old".
{cha' ben loD} might mean "two year old male" because people normally don't
change from something else to {loD} after they're born, but the general
impression I get from {cha' ben loDnal} is that the {ben} reference
specifically refers to {loDnal}.

>Sorry for the tantrum, but I'm getting tired of people twisting what I say
>into something I don't, or by missing my point entirely and arguing against
>me for something I wasn't talking about anyway.

Until you interpreted {cha' ben loDnal} as "two year old husband", I wasn't
arguing with anything.  I was just disagreeing about inferring "former"
from the use of {ben} before a noun.  (It looks like perhaps you're not all
that sure of the "former" meaning yourself, given the "two year old"
reading you proposed.)

-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh




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