tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 14 11:40:31 2010

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: jISIv

MorphemeAddict ([email protected]) 

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Krenath <[email protected]> wrote:
> What do you mean by 'timestamp'?
>
> The last thing I think of when I think of a 'timestamp' is anything
> relative.
>
> A timestamp is absolute. (Midnight, 4pm, January 3rd 478AD)
>

These are points in time. (Well, January 3rd, 478 AD, is a time interval of
one day, but it can be treated as a point.) Points in time can be absolute,
as above, or relative (deictic), e.g., 5 minutes ago.

>
> A timespan is relative. (yesterday, 5 minutes ago, next week)
>

5 minutes ago is a relative point in time, not an interval (timespan).
Intervals can also be absolute (the 20th century) or relative (the last
century, [which is ambiguous. Does it mean the hundred years immediately
preceding now, e.g., 1910-2010, or does it mean the the previous interval of
one hundred years that started on an even hundred, i.e, that lasted from
1900 to 2000?].)

It seems that timestamps can be either absolute or relative, and either a
point or an interval.

lay'tel SIvten


>
> Of course, I'm more a software developer than a linguist...
>
> On Sep 14, 2010, at 7:01 AM, "lojmIt tI'wI' nuv" <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I think of time stamps as either being absolute (like midnight) or
> relative TO NOW (like tomorrow). I don't think that a time stamp is the
> right grammatical structure to talk about the length of a span of time
> between two events, neither of which is now.
> >
> > My suggestion {qaSpu'mo' tup 'ar jIpaS?} translates to "I will be late
> because how many minutes have happened?" Is it really that obtuse? You seem
> fixated on using a time stamp here. You really can talk about time without
> always having to use it as a time stamp.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Sep 14, 2010, at 1:51 AM, R Fenwick <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> 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
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>

Back to archive top level