tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 31 20:28:14 1996
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Re: -wI'
Everyone's filling the pot with pennies, so here's my contribution.
After carefully re-reading pages 19, 18, 44, 78, 164, 167, and 168 I have
come to the following conclusions. The "one who/thing which is"
definition in the Klingon Affixes section is there only to help those
"noun-centric" English speakers. As Okrand has been quoted recently,
"For ease of reference, English entries in the English-Klingon section of
this dictionary begin with the word that the user would most likely be
looking for...followed by the correct translation." So when a beginner
is looking for a way to say "fighter" and finds only the verb "Suv", what
is he to do? Maybe he will remember something about a suffix that can
help. The total meaning is something like "one who is a fighter". So he
looks in the Klingon Affixes section for an entry that says, "one who
is". When he gets there he sees that the actual translation is "one who
does" and is reminded once again of the Klingon preference for action!
Now how does this effect "stative" Klingon verbs? The real question here
is... just what does "one who does be white" mean? To me this is
different than "one who is white" (after all you can do that with
-bogh). The feeling such words give me is very similar to the
explanation that Lord Havelock gave of "purpose". A white container is
ngaSwI'. A white probe is nejwI'. A white paint might qualify as chISwI'.
Does any of that make sense to anyone?
janSIy