tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 10 12:04:19 1994
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{-qu'}
HoD trI'Qal: [subject_header] vIpImmoHta' 'e' yItu'
"lIy So'" pu'DaH yIHujHa'
>qorvo':
>>naDev tamqu'
[...]
> tamqu' naDev
> "Here is silent."
[...]
> tamqu' "list"
> "The list is silent."
>Can't argue with the grammar on that. The other problem was the use of -qu'
>to mean "too." If you re-read the section on -qu' (pages 48-49), you will
see
>that it means nothing of the sort. I understood what you meant (without
>looking) just from the context, so in this kind of situation, it is probably
>okay. The only other alternative I can offer you is some sort of law'/puS
>construction, such as this:
> "list" tam law' vay' vIcherghlaHbogh tam puS
> "The list is more silent than anything which I can tolerate."
>Not as simple as the orignal, but certainly clearer.
The {-qu'} rover deserves a little commentation.
TKD (4.3 pg.48)
"{-qu'} /emphatic/
"This suffix emphasizes or affirms whatever immediately precedes it."
Here, "emphasize" and "affirm" are two different things.
Look at the first two examples given:
"{yIHaghqu'} /study him/her well/"
Obvious typo. Should be {yIHaDqu'}.
"{nuQaw'qu'be'} /they have not finished us off/
In these two examples, "study well" for {HaDqu'} and "finish off" for
{Qaw'qu'} seem to indicate that in these cases, {-qu'} augments the thing
immediately preceding it.
But in the next three examples, it has a slightly different function.
"{pIHoHvIpbe'qu'} /we are NOT afraid to kill you/
"{pIHoHvIpqu'be'} /we are not AFRAID to kill you/
"{pIHoHqu'vIpbe'} /we are not afraid to KILL you/"
In this case, it doesn't really augment anything, but rather functions to
bring attention to one particular phoneme.
In this way, {-qu'} is very much like a verbal equivalent to the {-'e'} noun
suffix. However, in the first two examples, it is more like the verbal
equivalent to the {-'a'} noun suffix.
To further indicate these relationships, here are some sample sentences from
the head of the Head Guido.
{-qu'} functioning as the Verb Topicalizer:
{qeqtaH neghwI'} "My soldiers are training".
{ghorgh Suvqu'} "[Yes, but...] When do they FIGHT?"
Parallel Relationship Among Nouns:
{Suvrupbe' neghvam} "These soldiers are not ready to fight".
{Suvrup vajvetlh'e'} "Those WARRIORS are ready to fight."
{-qu'} functioning the Verb Augmentative:
{tamqu' ghu'} "It is very quiet".
{Qongqu' Saj} "The pet is sleeping deeply".
{vItIvqu'} "I enjoy it very much".
It shouldn't be surprising that {-qu'} has multiple functions, since two
other rovers are the same way:
{-Ha'} = action undone OR action done wrongly
{-Qo'} = refusal OR imperative negation
One other thing: Most languages (that I know of) topicalize not by a
separate, explicit phoneme, but by simple accentuation of the phoneme(s) to
be topicalized. (e.g., "we are NOT afraid to kill you"). The exception of
course would be tone languages like Mandarin, which topicalizes
syntactically. Since Klingon does not use tones, and yet topicalizes with
explicit syllables, this leads me to believe that Klingon stress and
accentuation are very strict, i.e., all words have very specific stress
patterns, and accentuation of a syllable just for topicalizational purposes
screws up the stress pattern.
That's why Klingon says {jIvumnISqu'} rather than {jIvum*nIS*}. {vum}, being
the root of the word, must be accentuated (see TKD 1.3), and {-nIS} would
have to fall secondary of lower on the stress pattern of this word. So,
{-qu'} is used to emphasize it.
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos