tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 23 08:11:19 2004

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[tlhIngan-Hol] Re: Qagh

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

weQqul:
>tlhoy Qaghmey vIchenmoH 'e' vISov
>I know that i made many mistakes,

Voragh:
 > You do not create {chenmoH} a mistake {Qagh} in Klingon, you just {Qagh}
 > "make a mistake, be mistaken, err" using the homophonous verb {Qagh}, so:
 > {tlhoy vIQagh 'e' vISov}

lay'tel SIvten:
>>>so wouldn't it be jIQagh, with no object?   (in full: tlhoy jIQagh 'e' 
>>>vISov)

lughba' lay'tel SIvten.  I was looking at weQqul's post with {vIchenmoH} 
and carelessly copied the prefix over.  To invoke an appropriate 
replacement proverb:  {DopDaq qul yIchenmoH QobDI' ghu'!}  It just shows 
that even after years with this language, I still need to proofread everything!

weQqul:
>>bIlughbejqu'! no object! Qapla'! except wouldn't it be Qaghmey? (thloy
>>jIQaghmey 'e' vISov)

De'vID
>No.  In the sentence <jIQagh>, it (<Qagh>) is a verb.  <-mey> is a noun
>suffix.

This is one of the major errors of English-speaking novices:  to use noun 
suffixes on verbs and verb suffixes on nouns.  The line between verbs and 
nouns is fairly fluid in English, in that we can easily turn one into 
another.  (For example, I've heard people say colloquially "he English-ed 
the sentence" - putting a verb suffix on "English - as shorthand for 
"translate into English".  The prescriptivists may cringe, but native 
speakers understand this implicitly, however clumsy it may be sound.)  So 
far as we know, you can't do this in Klingon, not even in avant-garde poetry.

>Voragh's advice to use <tlhoy> is excellent.

Thanks, but it was weQqul who used it correctly instinctively, even though 
s/he's a little confused about how it works.

{tlhoy} "overly, to an excessive degree, excessively, too much" is an 
adverbial referring to the verb:  {tlhoy jI-VERB} "I VERB too much".  There 
is a similar-meaning quality which modifies nouns: {'Iq} "be too many, be 
too much".  Okrand explained the difference in HolQeD 8.3:

   [{tlhoy}]is used in such sentences as:
     {tlhoy jISop} "I eat too much, I eat excessively."
     {tlhoy bIQong} "you sleep too much, you sleep excessively."
   When {tlhoy} is used, it denotes that the action expressed by the verb
   is what is being overly done or done too much. Thus the sentence: {tlhoy
   qagh vISop} "I eat too much gagh, I eat gagh excessively, I overeat gagh"
   expresses the notion that the eating is excessive, not that the amount
   of gagh is. (Note that although it is possible to say this, it is not
   something anybody would be likely to ever say.) Similarly, {tlhoy yIHmey
   vIlegh} "I see too many tribbles" means "I overly see tribbles" (perhaps
   this could be used if one meant something like "I see tribbles far too
   frequently and in far too many places").
     To express the idea of "too much gagh" or "too many tribbles," the verb
   {'Iq} "be too many, be too much" is used adjectivally. For example:
     {yIHmey 'Iq vIlegh} "I see too many tribbles."
     {qagh 'Iq vISop}    "I eat too much gagh."
   Sometimes, the word {law'qu'} "be very many" (formed from {law'} "be many"
   plus {-qu'}, the emphatic suffix) is translated "be too many." If the
   context is clear, this is acceptable, but if it important to stress the
   idea of "overly many, overly much, more than there ought to be," {tlhoy}
   or {'Iq} is usually employed.

Another example from the same article:

   tlhoy Sop 'ach ghIq Qongchu'.
   He/she eats too much, but then he/she sleeps soundly.

Thus:

   tlhoy jIQagh 'e' vISov.
   I know that I make too many mistakes.

   mu'tlheghvamDaq Qaghmey 'Iq tu'lu' 'e' vISov.
   I know that there are too many mistakes in this sentence.

BTW: the opposite of {tlhoy} seems to be {loQ} "slightly, a little bit, 
briefly".



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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