[tlhIngan Hol] can DIgh and bam be used for people ?

[nIqolay Q]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 4:50 AM Lieven L. Litaer <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:

> Your explanation sounds reasonable, but we have this one canon example
>
> {DaH nuq wIDIgh?}
> What is our current task? / What do we undertake now?
>
> and this does not reveal any "problem or difficult situation".


The English "undertake", "task", and "deal with" typically imply at least
some non-trivial amount of time or effort. I usually wouldn't use them to
refer to eating a pie unless I was being facetious. (Or if it was a very
large pie.)


> If I go a step further, I really doubt the verb "undertake" can be used
> for people. (can it?) It sounds to me that this is only used with
> "actions", like eating, killing, having a party etc.
>

"Undertake" is not used with people, but "deal with" can be.
In English, "undertake" typically only takes objects that are a kind of
action, task, or activity: "effort", "project", etc. "We're undertaking the
cleanup of the affected area."
Whereas "deal with" can take objects referring to something that needs to
be handled: "We're dealing with the affected area" or "I'll deal with the
replicators." You can't really say "I'll undertake the replicators", you'd
have to say something like "I'll undertake the repairs on the replicators".
Since Marc Okrand is a native English speaker, I figure he would have known
that "deal with" can be used with objects that aren't actions when deciding
what glosses to use for {DIgh}.
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