[Tlhingan-hol] before now

[Fiat Knox]

Hence my other choice of qaSpa' poHvambefore this time had occurred ...

wejnot yetinfers that the moment of transition has not occurred yet, but the before nowconstruction indicates that the moment of transition is in the past: it has already happened. wej not yet could be used, but I'd recommend that you use the perfective suffix -pu' on 
the verb describing action that you had not yet done, so as to indicate the point of transition having been in the past, and not still to come in the future.

qaSpu' poHvam not tera'ngan vISuvBeforethis moment, I had never fought a Terran.
wej tera'ngan vISuvpu'I had not yet fought a Terran. You could also say I had yet to fight a Terran.

The wej not yetconstruction also infers that the event had been on the cards all along - the person was aware that he was going to write that manuscript, or fight a Terran. notnevertends to lean towards a more stochastic approach - there had been no plans to write manuscripts or fight Terrans: but hey, stuff happens.



On Monday, 3 March 2014, 8:42, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
 
De'vID:
>> How would you express "before now"? "I haven't done this (e.g., written a
>> manuscript) before now."
>> {ret not ghItlh vIqon}? Can {ret} be used by itself as a time stamp, and can
>> it precede an adverbial {not}?
>
>Fiat Knox:
>> Would {qaSpa' DaH} or {qaSpa' poHvam} work for you?
>> {qaSpa' DaHjaj not tera'ngan vISuv} "Before today, I had never fought a
>> Terran."
>> {qaSpa' poHvam DuH Dochvetlh 'e' not vIqel} "Before now, I had never
>> considered that that was possible."
>> {qaSpa' DaH not leghlu'} "It had never been seen before now."
>
>Is {DaH} a thing that can {qaS}? My intuition says that the subject of
>{qaS} is an event, or at least something that has a well-defined
>beginning, middle, and end in time. But I have no evidence either way
>whether {DaH} can be the subject of {qaS} or not.
>
>
>-- 
>De'vID
>
>
>
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