tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jan 21 10:08:24 1995
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verbs and nouns
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: verbs and nouns
- Date: Sat, 21 Jan 95 13:08:21 EST
Just a hint for beginners who sometimes confuse verbs and
nouns, and sometimes use verbs like ja'chuq as if they were
bare verb stems instead of ja'+chuq:
I don't know of any polysyllobic verb stems in Klingon. There
are many polysyllabic nouns and chuvmey, but verb stems are
always monosyllabic.
This can help you scan a sentence before you even look up the
words. If a word has more than one syllable, look to see if it
has any recognizable verb prefixes or suffixes. If it doesn't,
then it is not a verb. Hence, when you see {Qapla'}, you know
that it can't be a verb. When you see {ja'chuq}, you know that
it is not a bare verb stem.
This explains why it is so important for you to quickly
memorize (at least to the point of recognizing) all the noun
and verb affixes. Do this before you bother learning
vocabulary. You can always look up the words IF YOU KNOW THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN AFFIX AND A ROOT NOUN OR VERB.
Even then, there are ambiguities, like {Data'}, which can
either be "You accomplish it," or "He has achieved behaving in
the manner of..." Still, most of the time, this general rule
can help.
Hope this helps.
charghwI'
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