tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 11 14:40:41 2006
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RE: Klingon WOTD: bej (verb)
> >> HIvrup 'e' vIbej
> >> I watch that they're ready to attack. KGT
ter'eS:
>I can see that they are ready to attack {HIvrup 'e'
>vIlegh} or I can watch them getting ready to attack
>{HIvrupchoH 'e' vIbej} [or even better
>{HIvrupchoHtaHvIS vIbej}], but watching them being
>ready to attack seems wrong, not just clumsy English
>phrasing.
Hmm... {-rupchoHtaHvIS} "while ready to undergo a continuous change of
state"?? Although technically possible - i.e. Type 2 + 3 + 7 + 9 suffixes
in sequence - this doesn't feel right, outside of a temporal subspace
anomaly that is. Here's Okrand on {-choH} (TKD 37):
Suffixes of this type indicate that the action described
by the verb involves a change of some kind from the state
of affairs that existed before the action took place.
maDo'choH
we are becoming lucky,
we are undergoing a turn of luck
ghoSchoH
he is beginning to go (somewhere)
The implication of the second example is that he or she
was going either nowhere or somewhere else sometime before
the phrase was uttered. Note that the translation of this
suffix may be English "become" or "begin to".
If the change of state is {-taH} "continuous", then no change has in fact
occurred. While you see it as a slow or gradual change, even progress
towards a goal, to me {-rupchoHtaHvIS} implies a constant series
changes: ready, not ready, ready, not ready, etc.
AFAIK there are no examples of {-choH} being used with {-taH} or {-lI'} in
the same sentence, either on the same verb or even in another clause. But
although a change of state may not be continuous, it may be completed:
ghorgh tujchoHpu' bIQ
When will the water be hot? TKD
Interestingly, this is the only Type 7 suffix I could find associated with
{-choH} in the 21 examples I know of.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons