[tlhIngan Hol] Can we say {'op ret ngaj} ?

[SuStel]

Re: unmeasured *ret*


On 12/27/2018 11:02 AM, Steven Boozer wrote:
> It would probably sound as odd as saying just "ago" or "from now" in English.  E.g. "Ago I drank two cups of coffee " or "Don't worry! I'll finish typing up this letter from now."

On the other hand, thinking so might just reflect an English bias. For 
instance, TKD points out that what English does with prepositions, 
Klingon often does with nouns. It gives the example of *Dung* /area 
overhead,**/and gives the translation of *DungDaq* as /overhead./ So 
does that mean that Klingons always use "area words" like *Dung* with a 
syntactic marker? I don't think so: it seems perfectly reasonable to me 
to say *'IH Dung* /The area overhead is beautiful /if you were, say, at 
the Sistine Chapel. Any needed qualification of exactly which *Dung* 
you're talking about is implied from the context. So is a time 
expression any different? If exactly how many *ret* you're talking about 
isn't important, could you just wave your hand vaguely and say *ret*? 
Yeah, sure, never approximate and all that, but is adding *'op* really 
any better?

I'm not passing any sort of judgment on this; I'm just saying that it's 
really an unknown that can only be solved by Okrand making a decision 
about it. You can't prove that you can't do it by noticing that it's 
never been done; it might just not have appeared /yet./ A statement by 
Okrand about using it one way doesn't preclude using it another way too.

If you want to play it safe, add the *'op* or o**ther specifier, but 
this is definitely not a known rule.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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