tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 03 14:56:11 2000

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RE: KLBC: ghoS & jaH

jatlh Ken:

> What is the difference... or better yet how would I in my 
> usage distinguish between ghoS & jaH.

jang charghwI'. jatlh:

> Pardon me for barging in here on this, but these are words 
> I've had the rare honor of discussing with Okrand, so I 
> feel a responsibility to speak on it.

(QIjchu' ...)

> Again, this is just my spin on these verbs, backed up by 
> these two conversations with Okrand. Those conversations 
> definitely involved these verbs, but they did not 
> specifically address the differences between them. Anything 
> about that is my own synthesis based upon those earlier 
> conversations.

And now I'll contribute my own understanding. I think of <ghoS> pretty much
exactly the same way you do, charghwI'. The focus of the verb is that the
subject is in motion along a path. 

My understanding of <jaH> is similar as well, but perhaps not quite the
same. To me, the point of <jaH> is getting somewhere; the journey is
unimportant, at least in the context of the sentence. If I say <veng wa'DIch
vIjaH>, I mean that I was somewhere else, I took some action to relocate
myself, and then I was in the First City. Perhaps I took a shuttle; perhaps
a transporter; perhaps I walked. It doesn't matter. That's basically how
"go" works in English, and I can't think of a canon use of <jaH> that
disagrees with this interpretation.

<leng> has the same basic idea as <jaH> - going somewhere - but the journey
is not trivial. It could be, as charghwI' suggested, that we wandered around
all day. It could also be that the journey is significant or particularly
long. If I "roam, travel, rove" somewhere, the trip itself is an experience.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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