tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 04 10:57:33 2014

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Canon for answering negative questions

DloraH ([email protected]) [Hol po'wI']

> > What canon do we have indicating whether the answer to a 
> negative question like :
> >
> > 'umbe''a' loDHom?
> >
> > would be
> >
> > HIja', 'um.
> >
> > or
> > ghobe', 'um.
> 
> I don't have any canon, but what reason is there to think it 
> wouldn't be {HIja', 'umbe'} to begin with? The answer to 
> {'umchoH'a'} is {HIja', 'umchoH}, and the answer to 
> {belHa''a'} is {HIja', belHa'}, etc. I can't think of any 
> reason {-be'} should behave differently than any other suffix 
> in how it interacts with {-'a'}.
> 
> Qov:
> > All I can think of is cheDuQchugh mareghbe''a'? which is of 
> course rhetorical.
> 
> ghobe', mareghbej.


In your examples you did say more than just "yes" or "no".  You answered with a sentence expressing
the correct state.  But when answering simply yes or no, there can definitely be confusion.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the US, we encounter too many people that
slaughter the language, speaking with double negatives, say things like "I can't see nothing." (I
encountered this one just yesterday.)  Such a person that does speak like that could certainly give
a different answer than someone who is a computer programmer with a hobby in linguistics.

I give answers like, "That is correct, he is not qualified."


-- DloraH


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