tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 30 16:34:32 1997
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Re: Klaa
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>Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:30:09 -0700 (PDT)
>From: [email protected]
>
>Someone wrote:
>
>nom yIghoSqu' to mean "maximum speed."
>
>I would translate this Klingon sentence back into English as "Go at a very
>fast speed." And, I would translate "maximum speed" then as {nomchu'
>yIghoS}. I don't like {nom yIghoSchu'}, either. There must be another way
>to handle this sentence!
{nom yIghoSqu'} works fine for me for "travel really damn fast." The
difference between "very fast" and "maximum speed" is fine, and fine enough
that I don't really see a Klingon making it, especially in a command. If I
want you travel FAST dammit, what, you're going to hold back and not travel
as fast as possible because I didn't say "maximum speed"???
I DON'T like {*nomchu' yIghoS}. Okrand OK'd -Ha' on adverbials (DID he
sanction -be'? I don't remember hearing that), but I think he said it was
special and recognized it was a change. He would have said if we can use
just any old verb-suffix on adverbials.
Note that we already have evidence for verb-suffixes modifying the meaning
of the sentence as a whole, and thus the adverbial, if that's the element
that makes the most sense. Canon: {Hoch DaSopbe'chugh, batlh bIHeghbe'},
translated, "Eat everything, or you will die without honor." Note that the
negated element is really {batlh}, but the negative is on the verb! The
suffix negates the sentence *as a whole*, and since the adverbial is the
element that bears negation most sensibly in this case (obviously you'll
die eventually), that's where the negation winds up in the translation. (I
can even see a little of this in the canon use of -qu' to intensify a
command. In a sense, it's really intensifying the imperative prefix, but
you can't put -qu' on a prefix. Again, it intensifies the sentence, and
the imperative aspect bears the intensification best). And no, I don't see
any conflict between this "the -qu' applies to the sentence as a whole"
idea and the fact that -qu' and -be' are rovers which can be placed
specifically to modify individual suffixes. They do what they can do where
they can do it, but we've seen in canon that they can have more
far-reaching effects when that makes sense (and they can't be placed
directly).
~mark
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