tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 29 08:10:58 1997

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RE: <noun>-mo' <verb>-be'

jatlh qoror:

> ghItlh qhunchu'wI'
> >I think the Klingon is ambiguous.  {-be'} sometimes seems to negate only
> the verb or the suffix it follows, but it sometimes seems to negate the
> entire sentence, adverbials and subordinate clauses and all.<
> 
> That brings up something I've wondered about.  In "jagh'a'qoq," would "-qoq"
> refer to the so-calledness of "-'a'" or "jagh?"  In other words, does it 
mean
> "the great so-called enemy" or "the so-called great enemy?"  With things 
like
> rovers, in verbs, "-be'nIS," means "need to not ____," and "-nISbe'" means
> "doesn't need to _____."   But with nouns, things aren't so simple.

I haven't usually encountered problems with nouns.  Sometimes I'll want to 
emphasize a suffix, but not have the tools to do it, so I'll just stress the 
syllable a bit to emphasize it.  However, I don't see any reason to want to, 
for example, use a noun which indicates that is greatness is so-called.  
{jagh'a'qoq} means that the speaker says {jagh'a'}, but doesn't really believe 
the noun is what it says it is.  If the speaker then accepted {jagh}, we'd 
know that he didn't think the {-'a'} suffix was appropriate.  But there's no 
reason to need a noun which {-qoq}'s another suffix.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97242.1

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