tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 09 13:02:58 1995
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Re: Re Coffee
According to [email protected]:
>
...
> Thanks. I thought "<crunchy> be born" was a little weird. I didn't
> realize that you can put #9 verb suffixes on adjectives.
>
They are not adjectives. They are verbs. Klingon has no
adjectives. It has verbs (mostly the ones which have
definitions beginning with "be ", as in, "be big") which can be
used adjectivally.
In other words, {tIn be'} is a sentence. In English, it means,
"The woman is big." In English, you have the article "the",
which doesn't exist in Klingon because it is superfluous, the
noun "woman", which is the equivalent to the Klingon {be'}, the
verb "is", which does not exactly exist in the Klingon
language, and the adjective "big".
As close to the English adjective "big" as Klingon gets is the
verb {tIn} which means, "be big". In Klingon, there is no
adjective. There is just a verb which means, "be big". If you
place the verb AFTER the noun, you get "the big woman". It is
tempting to say that {tIn} is then a pronoun, but it really is
still a verb. It is just being used adjectivally.
I know this is strange, but that's just how it is. When {tIn}
(or any other potentially adjectival verb) is used as a verb
(like {tIn be'}), then it follows all the normal grammatical
rules for verbs with prefixes and suffixes. These verbs tend to
be "stative" or "intransitive", but they are still verbs and
they can take any Type 1-9 suffix or rover, just like any other
verb.
When they are used adjectivally (like {be' tIn}), then the
grammatical rules become more restrictive. The only verb suffix
that TKD tells us we can use is {-qu'}, though on CK we also
find out that {-be'} can be used on verbs when they are used
adjectivally. We also know that if adjectival verbs describe
nouns which get Type 5 suffixes, that suffix gets transferred
from the noun to its adjectival verb. {be' tInvaD jIjatlh}.
Quick review: Verbs whose English translations include
adjectives are just verbs and are treated like verbs. These
same verbs can follow a noun, thereby becoming "adjectival
verbs" and then lose the ability to have a verb prefix or most
verb suffixes. They then can only have {-qu'} or {-be'} and
also take on any Noun Type 5 suffix which would otherwise be
applied to the nouns they describe.
> For the next Valentine's Day I hope I get a box of <yIHmey Dech yuch>,
> chocolate covered Tribbles! {{:-) >
Make that {yIHmey'e' Dechbogh yuch} -- "tribbles which
chocolate surrounds".
> r'Hul
charghwI'
--
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