tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 03 07:33:20 1999

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Re: the scope of {-be'}




talking about the scope of {-be'} in {maqarbe'chu'},
charghwI' said (among many other things):
> But there is no way to apply negation to a pronoun unless it is 
> being treated as a verb. To use that in this kind of 
> construction, we have to go to the perversity of:
> 
> qarwI'pu' maHbe'.
> 
> Yuck.
>  

first of all, although _languages_ are not logical at all,
to me (not(we are accurate)) comes out to be the same as
(we are (not accurate)); ((not we) are accurate) covers a
subset of the former, namely that subset where there is
someone else who _is_ accurate. Both others _include_ the
cases where there is _noone_ who is accurate.

and in the languages I know, this latter case always has to
be described in some convoluted way:

it's not us who are accurate
c'est pas nous qui sommes accurats(sp?)
nicht wir sind genau

vs

we are not accurate
nous ne sommes pas accurats
wir sind nicht genau

so, it's not surprising that Klingon has to strain as well
to convey that meaning.

and in general, I have the feeling that both charghwI' and
ghunchu'wI' agree on the core matter; it's just that their
"pain threshold" is somewhat different...

                                           Marc Ruehlaender
                                           aka HomDoq
                                           [email protected]


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