tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 13 22:52:30 2010
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Re: jISIv
- From: R Fenwick <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: jISIv
- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:51:01 +1000
- Importance: Normal
ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
>Today, I thought I might be late. I said to myself, "How late will I be?"
>I considered how I would say that in Klingon.
jIjatlh jIH:
chaq jIpaS. tup/rep/jaj 'ar pIq jIpaw?
I may be late. How many minutes/hours/days in the future will I arrive?
taH:
>I rejected {'ar jIpaS} because, though an English speaker would understand
>it, grammatically, I've only seen {'ar} used adjectivally, not adverbially.
>It might make sense as {tup 'ar jIpaS}, though that is, itself, an odd
>grammatical construction, as would be {tup 'ar vIpaS}.
Not if {tup 'ar} is acting as a time stamp, though {tup 'ar jIpaS} would be
more like "For how many minutes will I be late?", which doesn't work for me.
It implies that you will stop being late after a certain number of minutes,
which simply can't happen: even after you arrive ten minutes late, you are
still late.
>One has no grammatical connection between {tup} and the verb.
There's never an overt grammatical connection between a time stamp noun and
the main verb of the clause it modifies.
>I could even stretch it to {qaSpu'mo' tup 'ar jIpaS?} It's a little awkward,
>but it carries the meaning clearly enough.
Not really; taking the sentence on its face, I can't get to "How late will I
be?" from it. "Because it has happened, how many minutes will I be late for?"
I can't wrap my head around it.
>So, I thought the best way might be simply to say, {tugh jIpaSqu' 'e' vISIv}.
pabbej. "I wonder if I will soon be very late." Is there a need to specify by
how much time you were going to be late?
QeS 'utlh