tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 25 19:10:54 2003
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: JangmeH toch De'wI' lo'
- From: "Sangqar (Sean Healy)" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: JangmeH toch De'wI' lo'
- Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 00:04:11 +0000
>ja'pu' SuStel:
> >If I say that /yaS qIp puq/ means
> >
> >The child hit the officer.
> >The child hits the officer.
> >The child will hit the officer.
> >
> >I'm not saying that it means one of these. It means all of them at once.
> >It means that at some unspecified point in time, past, present, or
>future,
> >we don't know which, a child hits an officer. I'm unable to translate
>the
> >sentence accurately into English, because English MUST have tense.
>
>ja' Sangqar:
> >I agree. Deliberate ambiguity for stylistic reasons is not the only
>reason
> >a time context may not be explicitly stated.
>
>The way you're agreeing seems to show that you still don't understand what
>SuStel was saying. A time context might not even *exist* for a Klingon
>sentence, either explicitly or implicitly.
Read the rest of my post. You'll notice that not only do I agree with the
idea, I point out that Klingon axioms (a la TKW) are a good example of it.
(Perhaps I worded it poorly. Did anyone else get this impression from my
words?)
I should point out that {yaS qIp puq} is incredibly unlikely to be such a
sentence. When that particular sentence is uttered, the speaker is
overwhelmingly likely to have a time context in mind for it. (Unless
perhaps he's expressing the general idea that, as the universe unfolds
through time, children will hit officers.)
>-- ghunchu'wI'
-Sangqar
_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail