tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 09 20:07:07 2000

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RE: pouring (was RE: Deixis and direction)



charghwI':
>My listing just says that {qang} means "pour" while {lIch}, which
>ghunchu'wI' mentions below, means "pour (into/onto anything)". I had never
>thought about it before, but just looking at these glosses, I'd expect to
>say, "I pour the water into the glass," as:
>
>bIQ vIqangmeH HIvje' vIlIch.}

ghunchu'wI':
> You've constructed this as if {lIch} meant "pour into/onto (something)",
> with the locative words included in the core meaning of the verb.  I don't
> believe that's what the parenthetical words are intended to imply.

>It sounds an awful lot like the difference between {ja'} and {jatlh}. The
>verbs are basically identical except for the nouns one would use for the
>direct object.

> The way I read it, the difference between {qang} and {lIch} is that {qang}
> *must* have a container involved as both source and target, and {lIch} has
> no such restriction.  The word "onto" in the definition of {lIch} tells me
> that {voDleH nachDaq 'awje' vIlIch} is a legal and appropriate sentence
> (the activity itself might be neither, of course).  The object of both
> verbs looks like it's the same thing:  the substance being poured.

After a glance at KGT, that's definitely the way I read it as well. Perhaps
it would help to think of <qang> along the lines of "transfer" or "decant"
rather than the more general "pour". 

I do wonder, though, whether <lIch> includes the meaning of <qang>, or
whether it's really "pour (into/onto anything *except* another container)".
In practice it doesn't matter much, since <qang> would likely generally be
used in preference to <lIch> wherever it applies.

pagh


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