tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 22 09:26:26 1998

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Re: Fw: Problem with {-meH} and negative meanings

According to Terrence Donnelly:
> 
> At 08:33 PM 1/18/98 -0800, Qermaq wrote:
> >Here's the latest from MO on our new forum - news://startrek.expertforum
> >
> >Qermaq
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Marc Okrand <[email protected]>
> >>This presents a number of options (there are certainly others):
> >>
> >>    {jIpaSqu'mo' narghpu' qaSuchmeH 'eb.} "Because I'm very late, the
> >>opportunity to visit you has escaped."  ({-mo'} "because," {narghpu'} "has
> >>escaped," {qaSuchmeH 'eb} "opportunity for me to visit you")
>              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> This is a very interesting construction, to me.  We've known for a while
> that verbs with {-meH} used with nouns can seem to function almost like
> adjectives of purpose, eg. {pe'meH taj} from KGT.  But always before
> the usage has been impersonal.  In fact, we've generalized this to the
> notion that true verb phrases can also be impersonal in the {-meH} part
> of the phrase, even if the main verb has an explicit subject: ?{pu'HIch
> DIlmeH, Huch 'ar DapoQ} for {pu'HIch vIDIlmeH...}.

Good observation.

> But here is MO using a personalized verb in a {-meH}+noun construction.  I
> like it a lot.  It seems more flexible than the {-bogh} construction.
> Could it, I wonder, have an expressed object: ?{nargh vavwI' vISuchmeH 'eb} 
> 'an opportunity to visit my father has escaped'.  How about an expressed
> subject: ?{vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI' 'eb} 'an opportunity for my friend to
> visit his father'.  

I have no problem with either of these. They are a little
convoluted to parse in real time, since when you hear it word
by word, it goes like this:

nargh - something escapes.

nargh vavwI' - My father escapes.

nargh vavwI' vISuchmeH - Ummm. Wait. I was wrong. A {-meH} verb
is following the main verb, so it must be modifying a noun that
I have not heard yet.

nargh vavwI' vISuchmeH 'eb - The opportunity for me to visit my
father escapes.

The second example is a little more amusing.

nargh - something escapes.

nargh vavDaj - His father escapes.

nargh vavDaj SuchmeH - Umm. El mistako. {SuchmeH} is modifying
a noun I have not heard yet.

nargh vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI' - My in-order-to-visit-his-father
friend escapes. Huh?

nargh vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI' 'eb - Oh! I get it! The opportunity
for my friend to visit his father escapes! Punctuation would
not help if it goes along English grammar lines because you
would not want to separate the PARTICIPLE from its noun, but
perhaps in Klingon it would make sense to do so:

nargh, vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI', 'eb.

In English, that would be totally weird, but what do people
think in Klingon? It's the way I actually think it in Klingon
and I'd probably even say it, with pauses, likely saying
{vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI'} at a slightly faster pace than the rest
of my normal speech rate, just to show the boundaries of the
{-meH} clause.

> Could the suffix {-'e'} play the same disambiguating
> role it does with {-bogh}: ?{vavDaj SuchmeH jupwI' 'eb'e'}, or does
> it need to?  To me, interesting questions all.

There is nothing here to disambiguate, relating to {-meH}, and
I see two different, nearly identical ways of reading this:

The opportunity for my friend to visit his father escapes.

(The in-order-that-my-friend-visits-his-father opportunity
escapes.)

My friend's opportunity to visit his father escapes.

(My friend's in-order-that-he-visits-his-father opportunity
escapes.)

See? The grammar can be interpreted two very different ways,
yet the meaning is the same. {-'e'} doesn't distinguish one
meaning from the other because both different grammatical
constructions have the same end meaning. Perhaps another
example would prove more need for disambiguation.

> (Also, to toot my own horn, I'd like to point out how similar {nargh 'eb}
> is to the construction I used in my translation of the {tlhoghtay} from
> DS9, where I translated "but it was too late" as {'ach ngabchu' 'eb}.
> Just a little self-promotion 8+) )

Hurray for you.

> -- ter'eS  

charghwI'

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