[Tlhingan-hol] Easter

Fri Apr 22 05:40:51 PDT 2016

I’m completely with you on {lIblI'}. The event is progressing toward an endpoint of being imminent. Meanwhile, I find {lIbchoH} to be odd, simply because being imminent already implies a change of state. Something is about to happen. Happening is a change of state.

Yes, something can progress toward being about to happen, but aren’t we getting a wee bit hyper-focused to point to a time when you either change to the state of progressing toward being on the verge of changing a state, or alternatively, to progress toward changing the state to be on the verge of changing a state? You are progressing toward beginning to be on the verge of an event (which is a change of state from not being Christmas to being Christmas).

It just feels like a bridge too far (or a change of state too far). I would think that {lIblI’} would be enough. {lIbchoHlI’} seems overdoing it.

After all, there is a verb {choH} meaning “change”. {choHchoH} is similarly odd. If you begin to change, haven’t you already changed? Changing to the state of changing is, in itself, already changing. If your intent is to say, “I’ve begun the process of changing, but I haven’t finished yet,” then {choHlI’} has that covered already. I can’t really see what {choHchoH} says that {choHlI’} isn’t already saying.

You could argue that {choHchoH} points to the beginning instant of changing, while {choHlI’} can point to the full range of changing out to, but not including, the last instant of change, but my whole point is that pointing to the first instant of change gets to be like the ancient Greek argument about how my hand can’t ever touch this wall because if I move half the distance between my hand’s current position to the wall and repeat this process forever, I will never actually touch the wall.

Obviously, my hand can touch the wall. There’s no problem unless you try to define the exact instant that touching starts. Just touch the wall and ignore trying to define the first instant of touch, and there’s no problem.

None of this is to say that {lIbchoH} and {choHchoH} are wrong and disallowed. I just think they are weird, and if I said one of these to a Klingon, I’d expect him to slap that silly grin off my face.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv

> On Apr 21, 2016, at 10:56 PM, Rhona Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ghItlhpu' Voragh, jatlh:
> > but I think {-choHlI’} is redundant.   The quality {lIb} either is or isn’t
> > applicable in the present.
> 
> I honestly did think hard about this - I wondered too if simply {lIb} would be enough, and certainly {lIb QISmaS} is plenty for "Christmas is near". But when one says "Christmas is drawing near" in English, that doesn't mean it's actually near yet, it's *becoming* so. That's literally the textbook definition of {-choH}: a change of state. As for {-lI'}, I used it primarily because SuStel has been very clear in the past arguing for the uses and abuses of the unmarked aspect, which (in the absence of further context) usually implies a non-punctual but non-continuous action. Using {lIbchoH} on its own is almost like "Christmas draws near" - which can be understood as referring to this Christmas by context in English, but I don't necessarily want to assume that a Klingon would understand it so as well. Conversely, if one is talking about the imminence of this specific Christmas, I thought that {-lI'} was the appropriate aspect marking to choose, since the drawing near of Christmas *is* a continuous action and is progressing towards an endpoint.
> 
> I understand your pet peeve and I know I'm guilty of it often, which I'm happy to cop to. But in this instance, where you feel that some people try too hard to mirror the temporal subtleties of English, for my part I feel the opposite: that people (myself included) sometimes don't use the nuances and subtleties of the Klingon aspects to their full effect. English is a language with rich variety in expression of tense and aspect. Klingon is perhaps even more so. {-choHlI'} is a mere combination of grammatical suffixes, not full-blown lexemes; I guess it just doesn't strike me as that much more complicated.
> 
> taH:
> > What’s the difference between “Christmas is imminent” vs. “Christmas
> > is drawing near”?
> 
> Exactly the difference between {lIb} and {lIbchoHlI'}. One is a state (right at this moment, is already imminent). The other is a continuous change of state (right at this moment, is not yet imminent but is in the process of becoming so). Unless I'm understanding "Christmas is drawing near" in more literal a fashion than you are?
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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)?
> 
> QeS 'utlh
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