tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 08 12:24:01 1995
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Re: "too many"
>Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 16:29:56 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>According to Riku Anttila:
>>
>> > I'm trying to remember the specific example that convinced me
>> > that {-qu'} also meant "too".
>>
>> "They don't serve Romulan Ale to Terrans. Too potent."
>> {tera'nganvaD romuluS HIq jabQo'. HoSghajqu'.}
>qatlho'qu'! bIqarchu'!
I've seen a lot go by on this thread, and now that it seems to be settling
down I need to add my comments.
I think it's a mistake to think of it as "-qu' also means "too"." That's
not it. "-qu'" is an emphatic, and can mean "very." BUT, the concept
"very" can, in the way it's used, imply what we mean by "too." So I don't
see "tujqu'choH QuQ" as necessarily meaning "The engine is too hot", but
more "the engine is getting very hot--obviously I wouldn't be telling you
this if there were no problem with that." Note that if the engine were
running under perfectly normal operating temperatures and you reached out
to touch it, I might warn you away, saying "tujqu' QuQ!" The engine's no
hotter than it should be, but it's very hot, too hot for your hand. Same
with "HoSghajqu'" here. Romulan Ale is very potent, so they won't serve it
to Terrans. I suppose that carries the meaning of "too", but only in the
way it gets translated.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but I don't really see these examples as
adding anything to the meaning of -qu'. I don't think you can blithely use
-qu' and assume it will be interpreted to mean "too much" unless the
context dictates that an emphatic means "too much."
Am I making sense?
~mark