tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 21 11:56:18 2003
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RE: qatlh vay' vInuQ :)
> > "it"? This sub-discussion here was about the "If". You wanted to get rid
> > of the "If".
>
> No, I thought the sub-discussion was about /-vetlh/ referring to the
> if clause...
From your earlier message you said:
> > > "If" does not indicate an action is occurring or will
> > > occur in the future.
> > > If you wanted to refer to the act of thinking, the English would
> > > more likely be something like "It would be a rare occurrence *for*
> > > mobs to think." Or the event would be cast into a subject, "A mob
> > > that can think is a rare occurrence."
To me this looks like you're talking about the "If". You sart with
explaining "If" and then you present examples that don't use "if". No mention
of /-vetlh/ in this sub-discussion.
> > The "it" IS ambiguous, in both languages, that's why this discussion
> > started.
>
> Except that in the original, "it" wasn't used, "that event" was.
And that changes ... what? They both refer to the same thing. In our
discussion of that sentence we simply replaced "that event" with the
pronoun "it", because "it" is much shorter; and those involved in this
discussion know that it is refering to the "that event".
> I think
> (I hope) we may have some concensus that using /-vetlh/ to refer to
> something local to the statement is a little odd, but even if you remove
> it, or use /-vam/ in its place, the resulting statement is still
> ambiguous,
I agree that -vetlh is odd for refering to a local/on topic thing... hmm, but -
vam doesn't sound right in that sentence. The /mob thinking/ is not "local",
it is a distant hypothetical occurrence.
People are always mixing up "this" and "that", even in english, so I wasn't
bothered by that part.
But either way, -vetlh or -vam, the looting was still a recent part of the
conversation and the sentence would still have been ambiguous.
DloraH