tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 14 15:25:33 2003
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Re: once upon a time...
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: once upon a time...
- Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 16:21:01 -0400
>From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>Here on the List I've seen both *(ben law') "many years ago; long ago" and
>*(ben law'qu'} "long, long ago" used, but - as is always pointed out by
>someone! - you probably can't use {ben} "years ago" indefinitely like this;
> you probably need a specific number {X ben}.
Don't say "probably." We have evidence of /X ben/, we don't have evidence
of just /ben/. But lack of evidence doesn't equal "probably not," when the
evidence is so slim. I think your "probably" can be traced back to some of
those objections you refer to, which have traditionally been quite forceful.
Say rather, "you might not be able to use . . . ."
I accept /ben/ and other time period words without explicit numbers. If you
know it happened years ago, but you don't know how many and it's not
important how many, say /ben qaS/ "It happened years ago."
Okrand gives us the use of some of the time words in HolQeD, but he doesn't
tell us "This is how they must be used," he tells us, "This is how they are
used." He's illustrating, not prescribing.
SuStel
Stardate 3534.1
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