tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 26 20:08:08 1997
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RE: Klingon Honor
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Klingon Honor
- Date: Mon, 27 Jan 97 04:08:01 UT
January 26, 1997 9:10 PM EST, jatlh Voragh:
> Continuing from my last post. What I want to know is simply this: what is
> the difference between the nouns {batlh} and {quv}?
> [...]
> However, on reviewing the canon, it seems that Okrand sometimes uses
> {batlh} and {quv} interchangeably. Certainly to do something
> "(dis)honorably" you use {batlh} as an adverbial, {batlh(Ha')}. Since he
> took the trouble of coming up with two separate words, just how does he
> distinguish between them?
I suspect that Okrand found that he had written "honor" as a noun and an
adverb, but not a verb. Notice that both forms of {quv} are found in the
Addendum. Here is how I tell the tale: working on {-ghach}, he had the idea
that certain verbs and nouns appear identical, and that changes in a verb
(e.g. {Sov} to {Sovchu'}) could be paralleled by its counterpart noun by
adding {-ghach} to it ({Sov} to {Sovchu'ghach}). He was really trying to come
up for a word for discommendation, which was used in The Next Generation, and
invented {quv} as both a noun and a verb so that he could say {quvHa'ghach}.
Why not just make a verb {batlh}? I don't know. Perhaps he just felt like
it. Maybe he wanted a special pair, so that use of {-ghach} in this way would
make sense.
This is only my guess, however. Okrand's interview in HolQeD about {-ghach}
causes some doubt as to whether this was what he was really intending of
{-ghach} (I still consider it a possibility, and an elegant idea at that). If
anybody else knows the REAL story, please correct me!
--
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97073.7