Re: Love (jIjegh!)

[Carleton Copeland <copeland@eycis.com>]

ja' qa'ral:
>>Ok, I know when to say /vav loDnI'/.

jang ghunchu'wI':
>nuqjatlh?

Only way I could think of to say *uncle*. 

>>*I agree* is of course not the equivalent of *I don't disagree*,...

>Why not?  Agreement is a yes/no concept, right?  If you do not agree with me,
>you disagree with me.  If you agree with me, you do not disagree with me.  It
>is the same in Klingon, but with the root word applying to the opposite idea.

Logical--but, as others have said, Klingon ain't Vulcan, nor is English.  I think you'll find you use *I agree* and *I don't disagree* in rather different situations.  The latter is a qualified, hesitant, even reluctant assent.  Or the speaker may be agreeing with a specific statement, while simultaneously expressing disagreement in the context of a larger argument. 

>>and *You encourage me* is quite distinct from *You no longer discourage me*.

>{-Ha'} doesn't always imply "undo".  Sometimes it means "do incorrectly", and
>that often makes sense translated as doing the opposite.  If I mis-discourage
>someone, what I'm actually doing is encouraging him.

I was aware of the "do incorrectly" sense, but don't see the connection.  *Misspeak* is not the opposite of *speak*, so I'm not sure how *mis-discourage* (in the sense of *discourage incorrectly*, whatever that means) can be equated with *encourage*. I'd still have to argue that /-Ha'/ can potentially modify verbs in three ways.  Thus, /qatungHa'/ may mean, at least in theory, *I no longer discourage you*, *I discourage you incorrectly* and *I encourage you*.  I suppose the latter sense would be the default setting because of its higher use value.  Based on the TKD listings, this "do the opposite of" sense works with /par/ and /tung/ and may or may not with /muS/.  (And /Qoch/ seems to be similarly affected by /-be'/.)  

>You're making things a lot harder on yourself by not getting a copy of TKD.
>Learning the grammar (and to some extent, the vocabulary) through secondhand
>sources is giving you a slightly skewed idea of what some concepts actually mean.

teHbej.  Don't give up on me, though; I'm working on it.

qa'ral