[88250] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: jISIv
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (lojmIt tI'wI' nuv)
Tue Sep 14 07:15:30 2010
From: "lojmIt tI'wI' nuv" <lojmitti7wi7nuv@gmail.com>
To: "tlhingan-hol@kli.org" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
In-Reply-To: <BAY127-W13D6CCEB6DC91A223F37CFAA780@phx.gbl>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 07:01:01 -0400
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
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 <qeslagh@hotmail.com> 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
>
>
