[tlhIngan Hol] “In a usual manner”

[Jeffrey Clark]

chaq {jIyItmeH HoDoSwIj motlh vIlo’} jatsla vay’.

{motlh vIyIt} vIleghchugh, “I typically walk” vIyaj.

—jevreH

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 17, 2019, at 20:27, Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:
> 
> I recently encountered the sentence *{motlh vIyIt}, where the intended meaning was “I walk in a usual manner”. The intended meaning was clear based on context and an accompanying English translation, but otherwise I would have read {motlh jIyIt} (correcting for the unusual prefix) as “I usually walk”; i.e., referring to the frequency or habitualness of the walking rather than the quality or the manner.
> 
> I recommended rephrasing as {yItwI' motlh jIH}, but I suppose any number of other constructions involving the verb {motlh} rather than the adverbial would have been appropriate, e.g. {jIyIttaHvIS jImotlh}, {motlh yItmeH Ho'DoSwIj}, etc., or using other words besides {motlh} (e.g. {jIyIttaHvIS jIle'be'}), but am I wrong about the adverbial {motlh} referring to only frequency rather than manner? Could {motlh <wot>} actually be understood to mean <wot> happens in a usual manner?
> 
> It seems the adverbial {motlh} was defined in KGT with just a gloss <usually, typically, as expected>, with no further clarification, and it seems to me that this could be read either as something indicating the usualness of the frequency or the manner of the verb it modifies, so I’m not sure where I got the idea from that it refers to the frequency. What canon uses, if any, have we seen of {motlh} as an adverbial, or of how to express that something happens in a usual manner?
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