[tlhIngan Hol] expressing ten minutes before dawn

[nIqolay Q]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 5:26 AM, Felix Malmenbeck <felixm at kth.se> wrote:

> I'm afraid that doesn't make much sense to me; I read it assomething like
> "Before dawn happened at ten minutes, I saw a cat."
>
> Personally, I'm a fan of expressions such as «jajlo' wa'maH tup ret» ("the
> ten minutes ago f dawn"), but I believe such constructs are quite
> controversial with the community, with many arguing that ret/pIq, Hu'/leS,
> ben/nem and the like should always be measured with respect to (the
> speaker's) present.
>
> You could say «qaStaHvIS jajlo' nungbogh tup wa'maHDIch» ("during the 10th
> minute that precedes dawn"), but that's rather cumbersome.
>

​I was re-reading some of the new words pages​ from old qep'a'mey (to
refresh my memory, you see, it's like bat'leth practice for your
vocabulary) and saw something in the new words from 2016
<https://www.kli.org/activities/qepmey/past-qepamey/qepa-chamah-wejdich/new-words/>
that reminded me of this discussion. Specifically, this:

*jIvIbHa'. wejHu' jImev.*
> *I time-travel three days into the past*; literally: "I time-travel to
> the past. I stop three days ago" - that is, I stop three days prior to a
> time referenced in the conversation, not necessarily three days prior to
> making this utterance.
>

That last sentence suggests that, like *Sum*, "relative time period" nouns
like *Hu'* usually use the speaker as a reference point, but in the right
context can be reckoned from another reference point. If this holds, then
that suggests that *jajlo' wa'maH tup ret* (literally, "dawn's
ten-minutes-ago") could work as a timestamp for "ten minutes before dawn".
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