tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 15 10:53:31 1993

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Re: Suffixes (Was: <<tlhIngan 'o' Humghach>>vetlh)

Qochbe' (and a few others like it which I also fail to remember off the top of
my head) are a pain in the but.  Yes, semantically it really ought to be
QochHa'.  My take has always been that this is just one of those funky
irregularities that show up from time to time and we just have to live with
it.  I'd say that if you said QochHa', a Klingon would understand what you
mean but think it sounds odd and wonder why you said it that way.  An
interesting side effect of using -be' instead of -Ha' on these is that you
have to remember to change it if you use an imperative:

    choQochbe''a'?          Do you agree with me?
    HIQochQo'!              Agree with me!

On the multiple rover, though, we have happier results.  There is absolutely
nothing that says you can't have two -be's.  First off, rovers are NOT a
suffix class as such, so the rule about not having more than one of a class
does not necessarily apply.  So it follows that you can use multiple of the
same one in different places.  I'm less clear about use of multiple in the
*same* place, which is an issue for the *fake* rovers (i.e. -Ha' and -Qo',
which don't really rove).  So jIQochbe'laHbe' seems kosher, but I'm more
reluctant about vIparHa'Ha' (not even clear what that would mean).

                --Krankor

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