tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 15 20:44:43 2005
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Re: Subtle shadings of "then": Okrand's error ?
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Subtle shadings of "then": Okrand's error ?
- Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 13:43:57 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' ter'eS:
>jIyaj, 'ach jIQoch. munuQqu' mu'tlheghvetlh. mu'tlheghDaq mu' {ngugh}
>Dachel,
>'ach meq vIyajbe'. qatlh mu'vetlh lo'lu'? mu'vetlh DachelDI', chay'
>mu'tlhegh DaDub?
It's not a matter of improving. It's simply a matter of what I see as legal
Klingon. I'm not trying to "repair" the proverb, I'm merely using it as an
example.
{wa'leS DISuvnIS. DaH Heghbe', 'ach jeghbe'chugh, ngugh Heghbej} (= {...vaj
ngugh Heghbej})
"We need to fight them tomorrow. They will not die now, but if they do not
surrender, they will die *then*."
All I wanted to say was that {X-chugh ngugh Y}, while not canonical, isn't
always ungrammatical. I'd thought that Quvar was implying that there was no
way of making sense of {X-chugh ngugh Y}. (My apologies if that's not what
you meant, Quvar.) The proverb was perhaps a bad example, since proverbs do
tend to be formulaic. In conversation, though, it doesn't matter whether the
verbs are {jegh} and {Hegh}, or {jev} and {Hev}, or {bagh} and {ngagh} for
that matter. There are just some times when {ngugh} is what you're looking
for. It's all about the context: no-one speaks in a vacuum.
Savan,
QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' qan je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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