tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 04 10:30:14 2004

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Re: expressing opinion vs. fact

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: <[email protected]>

> the type 3 qualification noun suffixes and the type 6 qualification verb
> suffixes can be used to indicate the speaker's opinion of what is being
said.
> thus the sentence "Mara is beautiful" as an opinion should have one of the
three
> verb suffixes, depending on the speaker's actual opinion of mara's beauty.
> e.g., if the speaker's opinion is definite, then the sentence would be
{'IHbej
> mara'}.  the absence of such a qualification suffix would imply
factuality.
>
> tkd, p. 24, section 3.3.3:  "[Noun] Suffixes of this type indicate the
> speaker's attitude toward the noun, or how sure the speaker is that the
noun is
> being used appropriately."
>
> tkd, p. 39, section 4.2.6:  "Like Type 3 noun suffixes, these [type 6
verb]
> suffixes show how sure the speaker is about what is being said. "


Those quotations show that those suffixes are used to express degree of
certainty, not opinion.

'IHlaw' mara.

It's not necessarily my opinion that Mara is beautiful, that's just what I
heard.  To represent my uncertainty, I use {-law'}.  Maybe, as someone
suggested, I haven't seen her for myself yet, and I'm just going on what
someone told me.

Compare with:

qIjlaw' Duj.
The ship is apparently black.

Whether or not something is black is not my opinion (philosophical questions
of how people see colors and pedantic tangents regarding quantum mechanics
aside).  Either it's black or it isn't.  As with the previous sentence, this
one uses {-law'} to express the idea that I'm not sure if the ship is black
or not.  It is or it isn't black, and I THINK it's black, but I don't know
for sure.

'IH mara 'e' vInoH.
I judge Mara to be beautiful.

This expresses an opinion.

'IH mara 'e' DanoHlaw'.
I think you judge Mara to be beautiful.  I'm not sure if that's how you
judge her.

SuStel
Stardate 4094.9

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