tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 22 22:06:21 1997
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Re: Must
ja' HomDoq:
>> All verbs, with or without suffixes, say something about the *subject*.
>ok, I was just using the same word as SuStel..., I think we both _meant_
>subject rather than speaker
SuStel was talking specifically about the sentence {jISopnIS}. With the
first-person subject prefixes, the subject *is* the speaker. :-)
>definitely, the {jIH} does different things in {jIHegh} and {jIHeghmoH},
>don't you think so?
Yes, I do, but that's because {Hegh} and {HeghmoH} *are* different things.
I see the difference between {jIHegh} and {jIHeghmoH} as being similar to
the difference between {jIHegh} and {jIHoH}. Or maybe even the difference
between {jItlhutlh} and {jIQam} -- they're describing different actions.
> I was also counting {-'egh} and {-chuq} in that
>category; basically by "prefix-mangling" I meant that they shift the meaning
>of what the prefix references...
I don't see that. {qIp} and {qIp'egh} are conceptually different in my
mind even without considering the prefix. The common translation into
English as "hit oneself" *seems* to change the object, but when I think
about it without translating, it comes out a lot like "self-hit" as a
distinct verb. The only common English verb I can think of like this is
"self-destruct", which translates cleanly into Klingon as {Qaw''egh}.
> ({-lu'}, {-'egh} and {-chuq} are also
>restricting the allowed prefixes, but that's not what I meant)
>the {ma-} in {maqIp} means something different than in {maqIpchuq}
>(1pl subject - no/general object vs. 1pl subject - 1 pl object)
That's how it appears *after* it's translated into smooth English. In
Klingon, though, the suffix {-chuq} just means the action takes place
between the plural subjects. None of the examples I can think of in
English are very good, but "intermix" and "intercommunicate" come close.
"Interhit" doesn't sound right, but it's how {qIpchuq} strikes my mind.
>what I was trying to say was that the _meaning_ of the suffixes influences
>whether I can think of them as being able to form "separate" things in the
>above sense and that that is probably not what a _Klingon_ feels
The suffixes that don't seem to modify the core *meaning* of the verb in
my mind are {-lu'}, {-neS}, and the type 7 aspect suffixes (and the type
9 suffixes, of course). And I'm not all that sure about {-lu'}.
-- ghunchu'wI'