tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 10 11:13:03 1999

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RE: Mu'mey chu'

voragh wrote:

> > : tlhoy - overly, to an excessive degree, excessively, too much 
> > : (adv) Note that this modifies the VERB and not any NOUN of a 
> > : sentence. It refers to an action that is excessive and not that 
> > : the action involves too many or too much of a noun. See {'Iq}. 
> > 
> > Now this one is confusing.  How is {tlhoy} different from the emphatic
> > suffix {-qu'}, which Okrand has occasionally used in the sense of "too
> much"?
> 
> 
charghwI' responded:

> Apparently, he has never really used it to mean "too much". We 
> read that into {tujqu'choH QuQ}, translated as "The engines are 
> overheating," but apparently that was an interpretation of 
> simply saying, "The engines are becoming very hot." One supposes 
> that a Klingon engineer would not bother saying this unless it 
> was a signficant development.
> 
> If he ever HAS used {-qu'} to mean "too much", then that was 
> apparently no' Hol. Any time you want to mean "too much", use 
> {tlhoy}. 
> 
> 
When I look at {-qu'}, I think of it as similar to a verb-counterpart of
{-'e'} -- it emphasizes that word. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the
verb is done a lot or to a large degree. For example, if I read {HoD'e'
vIlegh}, I think "I saw the *captain*, not someone else". Similarly, I would
think of {HoD vIleghqu'} to mean "I *saw* the captain, (but I didn't talk to
him or anything else)". It doesn't mean that I saw him a lot; I might have
only glimpsed him. But to me, when it follows the verb, {-qu'} emphasizes
that verb instead of another verb.

The way I would interpret {tujqu'choH QuQ} would be something like "The
engine(s) are becoming *hot* (as opposed to becoming cold or powerful)"; it
wouldn't necessarily mean "The engine(s) are very hot".

I don't think that the "too much" or "very" meaning of {-qu'} is quite
right. Although on page 49, TKD says "The rover {-qu'} (emphatic) may follow
verbs  functioning adjectivally. In this usage, it is usually translated
_very_."
To say "the very big ship" or "the enormous ship", I might have preferred
*{Duj tInchu'}, except that {-chu'} cannot be used on a verb which is used
adjectivally.  So {Duj tInqu'} is translated as "the very big ship",
although I might also think of it as "the *big* ship (as opposed to the
medium-sized ship or the small ship)".

I think this is also one reason why the description of colors in KGT seems
strange to me. On page 82 of KGT, Okrand translates {Doqqu'} and {SuDqu'} as
"very Doq" and "very SuD". I would translate {Doqqu'} as "*Doq*, not
blue/green/yellow, white, or black". It seems that especially when used
adjectivally, a verb with {-qu'} is used to also hold the meaning of
{-chu'}, possibly because {-chu'} cannot be used on a verb used
adjectivally.

-taD

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