tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 04 05:50:54 1994
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More on negation
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: More on negation
- Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 17:48:50 -0400
- In-Reply-To: Carl Sadler's message of Sun, 3 Apr 1994 23:35:12 +0100 <[email protected]>
>From: Carl Sadler <[email protected]>
>Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 23:35:12 +0100
>Content-Length: 1863
>On Mon, 4 Apr 1994, Mark Reed wrote:
>> \ a) tlhInganbe' jIH or
>> \ b) tlhIngan jIHbe'
>> \
>> In these constructions, the pronoun is acting as a verb, and any verb suffixe
>s
>> may be applied as necessary to the pronoun. In general, suffixes may not be
>> attached to a word that is not of the correct type; you may not put a verb
>> suffix on a noun, or vice-versa. A noun with -be' , in particular, appears t
>o
>> be a compound using the nound be' (woman), so that "tlhInganbe' jIH" could
>> be constured to mean "I am a Klingon woman".
>>
>So what exactly are you saying? That you could correctly say "tlhIngan
>jIHbe'"? What you said does makes sense, and I would tend to agree that
>that would be the most logical choice of where to place be' so that you
>are not talking about a woman [which I had never thought of before].
Yes, "tlhIngan jIHbe'" *is* correct, not only because it makes sense, but
also based on what we know. Read Section 6.3, where it says that pronouns
are used "followed, where appropriate, by verbal suffixes". Pronouns can
be used as verbs, and so *they* take the negation, which is, after all, a
verbal suffix, and not a noun suffix. There is, of course, the example in
the tape "tlhIngan jIHbe'".
>Let's take another example. I have always translated "I love you" as
>"bang SoH". So you could say "I don't love you" as " bang SoHbe' " ?
>[Or is that a bad translation for 'I love you' anyway? Seems like it
>could be, considering how well I am doing so far. :)]
Personally, I always preferred "bangwI' SoH" for "I love you", in that it
doesn't postulate the existence of a verb we don't know about or coin one
of possibly iffy meaning. And yes, "I don't love you" would then be
"bangwI' SoHbe'". What's more, you could have "bangwI' SoHlaw'" for "I
think I love you" and "bangwI' SoHba'" for "I obviously love you", etc, etc.
>1) "I will never love you" not bang SoH
>2) "I have never loved you" not bang SoHpu'
Work okay for me. I suppose you could also do "wej bangwI' SoH" for "I
haven't yet loved you". The first *does* need its context for the future
meaning to come through, though, like it always does in Klingon (which has
no future tense nor aspect). If there were a noun of time for "in the
future" (which there ought to be; kind of an extension of "nem" and "leS"),
you could use it.
> This is assuming that the pronoun does indeed act as a
>verb [which it makes sense to think that it does, considering it is
>replacing the English verb 'to be'] and can therefore take verb suffixes.
It does, not because of your logic (languages? Logical?) but because
Okrand said so.
>Comments please?
>-Carl
~mark