[Tlhingan-hol] Easter

[SuStel]

On 4/21/2016 10:56 PM, Rhona Fenwick wrote:
> jatlh SuStel:
> > lIbchoHlI' isn't just redundant: it doesn't mean just imminent. It is
> > something more like progressing toward starting to be imminent or
> > starting to progress toward being imminent. Or something.
>
> With respect, the translations here are misrepresenting the Klingon as 
> more cumbersome than I think it is. {-choH} doesn't mean "start to" 
> necessarily; it just carries a nuance of a change of state, which may 
> or may not be smoothly translated by "start to". To take another 
> example with an adjectival verb, {DoqchoH} is rendered as "redden" in 
> HQ v12n4p9. {DoqchoHlI'}, then, presumably can be safely rendered "it 
> is reddening". Translating it as "progressing toward starting to be 
> red" is technically accurate, but unfairly awkward.

I wasn't presenting it as a colloquial translation, but, as you say, 
merely technically accurate. I wasn't judging based on the awkwardness 
of my translation.

Let's look more deeply at those suffixes. *lIb:* /be imminent./ 
*lIbchoH*: a change of state from not being imminent to being imminent.

*lIblI':* being progressively imminent. What does that mean? /Becoming 
more and more imminent? /The imminence is making progress toward a known 
stopping point? Does imminence progress?

*lIbchoHlI':* being progressively imminent, changing state from not 
being imminent to being imminent. What this means depends on what 
*lIblI'* means, which I'm really not sure about.

> For yet another example, would you have the same problem with 
> {SumchoHlI' vay'}, which expresses a similar concept but in space 
> rather than time? If so, why (purely lexical arguments aside)?

*Sum* /be near
/*SumchoH* /change of state from not being near to being near
**/*SumlI'*/** being progressively near; becoming more and more near?
/*SumchoHlI'* /being progressively near; changing state from not being 
near to being near

/Assuming being progressively near means getting nearer and nearer, then 
I don't see the combination *-choHlI'* as denoting /drawing near./ Just 
*-lI'* seems to handle that. There's no change of state involved in 
/drawing near,/ just various degrees of nearness or imminence.

*lIb* /be imminent
/*lIblI'* /continuously be imminent until the point that being imminent 
is done

/Even there, I'm not sure that there any implied growth of imminence, 
beyond the logical fact that spending time continuously being imminent 
means you're that much closer to the event that is imminent.

All this assumes we're talking about Christmas actually being imminent; 
in English we often hear phrases like "draws ever nearer" regarding 
events that aren't actually imminent or objects that aren't actually 
nearby. For objects, I might say *reH choltaH* /always continuously 
approaching./ Not sure about events.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
//
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