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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/29/2017 11:26 AM, Ed Bailey
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CABSTb1eaZMF_Ln8jKqu2MiH9xSS8o=3GNtEUUSkGN5DqFFJ7wg@mail.gmail.com">Age
is normally expressed as in the example {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}, "I
was born 40 years ago."<br>
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<div><br>
<a
href="http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1996-12-12a-news.txt&q=age"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://klingonska.org/canon/search/?file=1996-12-12a-news.txt&q=age</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The English word "ago" tends to be always relative to the
present. {ben} is glossed as "years ago" but is it necessarily
relative to the present, or is it relative to the event being
talked about?<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Say we want to use age to express when something happens,
as in {qaSpu' wanI'vam loSmaH ben jIboghpu'DI'}. Does it say
"This event happened when I was 40 years old (when I had been
born 40 years previously)" or "This event happened when I was
born forty years ago." Switching the dependency of the
clauses, {qaSpu'DI' wanI'vam loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}, seems to
have the desired effect on {ben}: "When this event happened, I
had been born 40 years ago (that is, I was 40)." But I can
still conceive that it could be understood as "I was born 40
years ago when this event happened." Reversing the order of
the clauses shouldn't have any effect in Klingon, but I would
tend to interpret {loSmaH ben jIboghpu' qaSpu'DI' wanI'vam} as
"I was born 40 years ago, when this event happened" instead of
"I had been born 40 years previously when this event
happened."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Are there relevant canon examples?</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I think the <i>ago</i> in <b>ben</b> and <b>Hu'</b> are always
relative to the present of the speaker, but I have no evidence to
back this up aside from the <i>ago</i> in their given
translations. If you want to say something like <i>ten years
before I was born,</i> but you don't want to give away your age
and do the math yourself, you'll have to say something like <b>jIboghpa'
qaSpu' wa'maH DIS; qaSpa' poHvam, <i>blah blah blah...</i></b>
This is really clumsy and I don't like it, but I can't think of a
better way to do it. I tried to come up with something about <b>qaSpa'
boghpu'ghachwIj wa'maH DIS vorgh,</b> but that doesn't sound
right to me.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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