tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 15 07:47:51 1999
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Re: Love (jIjegh!)
- From: Carleton Copeland <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Love (jIjegh!)
- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 18:48:17 +-400
ja' ghunchu'wI':
>I don't know why you keep using the "no longer do something" phrasing for the
>suffix {-Ha'}. That would be expressed using {-be'choH} or {'e' mev} or some
>similar construction. {-Ha'} doesn't mean "stop", it means "un" or "mis" or "dis".
See below.
>I'm puzzled at your reluctance to accept {-Ha'} as able to express "do the opposite
>of" in general.
Au contraire! It was my eagerness to accept it that got me into trouble in the first place. I tried to apply the "do the opposite of" sense to /muSHa'/ and so establish that Klingon does after all have a verb *to love*. My respondents were adamant that /muSHa'/ does not signify *love*, but rather the *undoing* of a prior state of hate. I phrased this as *no longer hate* because the translations that were suggested--*un-hate* and *dis-hate*--are so unnatural in English. If you hate something and then *undo* that hate, you *no longer hate it*. At least that's my understanding.
Later, in a more tentative mode, I suggested that, "Perhaps, when appended to certain verbs, /-Ha'/ and /-be'/ don't just undo or negate the action but transform it into its opposite." SuStel, who I thought had implied this in an explanation of /parHa'/, wrote to say he meant no such thing. So, far from being reluctant to accept /-Ha'/ as *do the opposite of*, I had begun to think it was my own lonely and heretical position. If you're going on record as endorsing it, at least with respect to "certain verbs"--e.g., /parHa'/, /QayHa'/, /tungHa'/--I'm relieved to have an ally. (I haven't given up hope for /muSHa'/ either, but until this usage is supported in canon, I won't argue for it.)
qa'ral