<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, 20 Nov 2021 at 16:50, <<a href="mailto:luis.chaparro@web.de">luis.chaparro@web.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Since I'm a beginner I lack the knowledge to answer this question, but I was thinking on the possibility of making a whole sentence the object of *qa'*:<br>
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*pu' DIlo'chugh, maQap. yan DIlo'chugh, maluj 'e' qa'* (*If we use phasers, we'll win. It replaces that if we use swords, we'll lose* or something like *Instead of losing if we use swords, we'll win if we use phasers)<br>
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I suppose it's completely wrong, but I would like to know why in order to improve my understanding of the language :-) Thank you!<br></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>I think the sentence is fine, but it doesn't have the same meaning as mayqel's original sentence. If you drop the subordinate clauses, you end up with: {maQap; maluj 'e' qa'} "we win instead of lose". So your sentence says, "we win (if we use phasers) instead of lose (if we use knives)". In your sentence, winning replaces losing. What mayqel wanted to express was phasers replacing knives. </div><div><br></div><div>(Winning instead of losing is a consequence of phasers instead of knives, so probably in most situations your solution would be suitable, but maybe there are some cases where one really does want to state the replacement in the antecedent of the conditional instead of the consequent.)</div><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">De'vID</div></div>