I can understand the hesitancy with using *ben law'.* As a time expression, *ben* by itself points to a time, albeit a vague one. But it's a noun that indicates a point in time. So what does it mean if you have more than one *ben*? What are *benmey*? Surely we already know the answer to that: *cha' ben* means /two years ago,/ so *cha' benmey* also means /two years ago./ Multiple *benmey* means exactly the same thing as singular *ben*. So I see no grammatical reason why we can't speak of *ben law'*. *wa' ben, cha' ben, ben law'*/one year ago, two years ago, many years ago./ As for the original question, I'm not sure I see any significant difference between *SaD law' ben* and *SaD ben law'.* I think I'd go for the former, since it makes more sense to me to speak of years ago counting in the many thousands, rather than having many thousand-years-agos. On 12/6/2016 11:46 AM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
Andre Muller:
I might also accept {ben law'} as many years ago, although I'm not sure it works well.
I remember voragh once writing: {ben law'qu'} has been used many times on this list to indicate "once upon a time".
Now, as far as the three possible choices I wrote are concerned, I think that they are all valid with the meaning only slightly changing from one to the other:
{SaD DIS ret law'} = many (thousands of years ago)
{SaD DIS law' ret} = (many thousands of years) ago
{SaD law' DIS ret} = (many thousands) of years ago
If the above analysis is correct, then perhaps this all comes down to personal preference.
qunnoH jan puqloD ghoghwIj HablI'vo' vIngeHta'
On 6 Dec 2016 6:32 pm, "André Müller" <esperantist@gmail.com <mailto:esperantist@gmail.com>> wrote:
Don't forget that "years ago" is {ben}, so you can either say: 1) {SaD DIS law' ret} = many millennia ago, or 2) {SaD law' ben} = many thousand years ago. And these essentially mean the same.
I might also accept {ben law'} as many years ago, although I'm not sure it works well.
- André
2016-12-06 16:01 GMT+01:00 mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com <mailto:mihkoun@gmail.com>>:
In order to indicate "many millenia ago", which is the correct choice ?
{SaD DIS ret law'}, {SaD DIS law' ret} or {SaD law' DIS ret} ?
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name