tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Nov 05 06:41:12 1999
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Re: the scope of {-be'}
>Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 20:24:54 -0500
>From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
>
>jIja'pu':
>>Furthermore, {qarchu'be'} means essentially the same thing whether you
>>see it as "(not-completely) accurate" or "not (completely accurate)".
>
>ja' ~mark:
>>Huh??? Not in the least! When -be' modifies the -chu', it means the
>>"completely"ness is not so: it is not completely accurate. That is, it
>>might be a little accurate, but not completely so.
>
>Both "(not-completely) accurate" and "not (completely accurate)" match
>your explanation, at least the way I see it. What do you see differently?
>
>>When the -be' modifies
>>the qar, and THAT in turn is modified by -chu', we have that the accuracy
>>is not so, it is not accurate, and THAT is completely so: it is completely
>>non-accurate, totally not accurate at all.
>
>You lost me completely here. Not even the most vocal supporter of the
>global applicability of {-be'} has said it could be applied like that.
>Where did you see anyone propose that {qarchu'be'} might be interpreted
>out of order that way? {-be'} *is* a rover, and if that's the way you
>want it to be read, that's the way you should write it: {qarbe'chu'}.
>
>>That's the whole point of rovers.
>
>Well, yes. I am obviously not speechless, but I am extremely surprised
>at what you're saying. I greatly suspect something got misread badly by
>one or both of us.
Well, isn't that what we're seeing in {choHoHbe'vIp} vs. {choHoHvIpbe'}
(TKD 4.3)? In the first case, we have "You are: afraid-to (not kill me)"
and in the second we have "You are: not-afraid-to (kill me)". Notably, in
{choHoHbe'vIp} we're talking about NOT killing me and in {choHoHvIpbe'}
we're talking about killing me (but not being afraid of it). So too, I'm
saying that {maqarbe'chu'} is talking about NOT being accurate (and being
perfect in that non-accuracy) as opposed to {maqarchu'be'} which talks
about being accurate (but being imperfect in that accuracy). Near as I can
tell this is *exactly* parallel to the example in TKD.
~mark