tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 06 16:27:55 1994

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Re: The suffix -ghach



This is the way <I> have basically been going with -wI' and -ghach (and I
think it's pretty close).

-wI' is simple, it's like adding "-er" to the verb, just as it says in TKD.
HoHwI' is HoH + wI', and means "killer".  Klingon, however, is not specific
(and English isn't either, really) as to whether or not a HoHwI' would be a
person or thing which kills, or a thing that would be USED by a person to
kill something.

-ghach is really completely different.  Okay, not completely.  But pretty
different.  -ghach is used to create something along the lines of the phrase
"the act of <verb>ing".  HoHghach would mean "killing", as in "the act of
killing".  In English, this doesn't always translate over.  But to use the
pure English example of "commend", adding -ghach would create something like
"the act of commending", or "commendation".

However, the TKD is very, very ambiguous with -ghach.  IMHO, the two examples
it provides actually paints different pictures of the use of the suffix.

Personally, I really hope that -ghach means what I think it means.  I've found
it very, very difficult to translate something like "Killing is bad", because
TKD doesn't account for the use of phrases/sentences as subjects, only as
objects.  This means, IMHO, you need some really strange construction like
"You kill and this is bad".  It would be a lot easier to simply say
"qab HoHghach", but I'm not entirely sure if that would be correct.

The other question that isn't answered is whether or not verbial prefixes could
be used on a -ghach construction, which would make something like "you killing
him is bad" as simple as "qab DaHoHghach", but I don't think anyone here would
really say that would be correct.

...Paul

PS>  If I confused you, oops.  :)



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