tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 13 22:10:22 1997
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Re: Must
ja' HomDoq:
>I think {jISopnIS} translates best as "I need food"; no "real" verb
>there, emphasis on the nouns "I" and "food". "need" merely relates
>the two. In Klingon {-nIS} _modifies_ the _sentence_ {jISop} in
>its entirety, all the information contained in that is equally
>relevant for {-nIS}.
I'm sorry, but I disagree completely with the way you're translating it.
{jISopnIS} quite definitely means "I must eat" or "I need to eat." The
sentence "I need food" doesn't say the same thing. It might imply that
I have to eat, but it doesn't come out and say it. "I need food" would
be rendered as {Soj vIpoQ}, and could be spoken by someone shopping for
groceries even if the shopper isn't hungry at all.
The distinction between "need [a noun]" and "need to [do something]" is
quite clear in my mind. {-nIS} is like the other Type 2 verb suffixes,
describing choice or predisposition to *act*. As a verb suffix, it has
an effect on the *verb*; it doesn't emphasize the nouns in the sentence
at all.
-- ghunchu'wI'