tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 28 14:28:19 1998
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Re: opera: blind
ja' pagh:
> lab muHwI':
>
> > Hi
>
> > The klingons won't be able to see any more (i.e. they become
> > blind)
>
> > I wanted to do that using the verb {legh} And here's the
> > problem with logic again, that stops me.
>
> > Grammatically it should be {leghchoHlaHbe'}, but that sounds like
> > "he is not able to change to see" But I want to say "he changes to
> > not be able to see" leghlaH --> leghlaHbe' --> leghlaHbe'choH
>
> > HHnnnnn???
>
> Every natural language has ambiguities, and this is one of them in Klingon.
> The suffix order in Klingon is fixed (except for <-be'> and <-qu'>), and you
> can't change it. To someone just learning Klingon, it's difficult not to
> want to rearrange suffixes sometimes. To someone who has spoked Klingon for
> a while, misplaced suffixes just sound wrong.
>
> <leghchoHlaHbe'> *does* mean "he begins/changes to be unable to see" ("he
> becomes blind") as well as "he cannot begin to see", and probably a few
> other meanings as well. The context of the sentence will almost always make
> the intended meaning blindingly obvious.
>
Maybe you could also use <leghlaHbe'wI' moj>. Just a thought. It's not great. It
doesn't sound too powerful. Yet it's not ambiguous. yIwIv SoH!
HovqIj
> pagh
> Beginners' Grammarian