tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 28 13:16:48 2012
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] How do we know what -Ha' means? (Was: Re: ramwI'mey)
> I'll pick some random
> verbs and you tell me what your tlhIngan Hol Duj tells you they mean.
jIQuj.
> nenHa'
be immature
> cha'Ha'
project (something) wrongly
> SevHa'
fail to contain (an enemy)
> wuDHa'
? snore wrongly ?
> tlhIvHa'
be compliant
> jeghHa'
change one's mind after surrendering
> 'IqHa'
no longer too many
> pumHa'
fall wrongly
> HeSHa'
blunder a crime
> Feel free to add more, add examples, write context, whatever adds to
> the discussion.
My translations above are not absolute. Just because a verb can legally
take a suffix doesn't mean it wants to do so. My translations are just
my first impressions.
-Ha' doesn't just mean opposite; it means "do the reverse of," "undo,"
or "do wrongly." It means that the subject "misses" the meaning of the
verb. None of these meanings are inherent in any particular verb; the
meanings will come out in context.
For instance, I said {jeghHa'} is "change one's mind after
surrendering." This is the "undo" sense of the suffix. I chose it over
"surrender wrongly" simply because it seems to me to be much more likely
that one, especially a Klingon, would talk about undoing a surrender
than screwing up a surrender. To be sure, one could mess up a surrender:
by dropping the white flag before the enemy sees it, for instance. I'm
just reporting the first sense to come to mind.
So the exact meaning depends on context, but some words may be more
strongly associated with one sense than another. It is important for
effective speech that the correct sense be made clear.
--
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/
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