tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 24 08:04:54 2007

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Topic (was: Re: Dilbert Comic in Klingon for February 9, 2007)

Agnieszka Solska ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Doq:

>It also suggests that perhaps  we can use {-'e'} on a time stamp so that we 
>can be less frequently  forced to use the {qaStaHvIS} device. In other 
>words:
>
>wa'ben qatoy'taH. "A year ago, I was serving you."
>wa'ben'e' qatoy'taH. I have served you for the past year.

Based on the description of {?'e'} in TKD plus the canon
examples of its use, {wa'ben'e' qatoy'taH} can still be
interpreted as "It was a year ago that I was serving you,"
the implication being that it was not, say, a month ago,
(with -'e' marking focus, rather than topic).

>The whole issue is that {wa'ben} (or {wa' ben}, (...)
>can point to the moment that occurred a year ago, or it can point to the 
>duration

Hmm, I've always thought that such words as {ben/nem},
{wen/waQ} cannot be used to indicate duration. Afer all,
the expressions used in their English glosses are
"years ago/from now", "months ago/from now," not
"for the period of ...  years/months". Besides,
we do have words like {DIS} or {jar}, which refer
to *periods* of time. That is why, to indicate
duration in "I have served you for the past year"
I would use {qaStaHvIS} (BTW I fail to see the merits
of trying to use it less frequetly) and say either

   {qaStaHvIS wa' DIS qatoy'taH} or
   {qatoy'taH qaStaHvIS wa' DIS}

To be really emphatic I might add an otherwise
redundant (poH):

   qatoy'taH qaStaHvIS wa' DIS poH.

Naturally, since Klingon doesn't mark tense these sentences would also mean
"I served you for one one year"  or "I will be serving you for one year".

To me, the "topic" interpretation of {wa'ben'e'} in {wa'ben'e' qatoy'taH}
would only be "As for last year, I was serving you".

Obviously, not being a native-speaker of English, I might be wrong
in my interpretation of the English words "ago/from now".
If this is the case I will welcome being put right.

'ISqu'

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