tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 18 15:32:43 2001
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Re: 'op puS qechmey vIghaj
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: 'op puS qechmey vIghaj
- Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:11:00 -0400
jatlh charghwI':
>mu' <<'op>> vIqel. 'op law' lo'mey vIqel. 'op puS vIwuq.
>
>Consider the following progression:
>
>pagh
>'op puSqu'
>'op puS
>'op
>'op law'
>'op law'qu'
>HochHom
>Hoch
>
>Could we also consider {paghHom}?
>
>Is this interesting to anyone?
It certainly is interesting, but what does a verb modifying a number-type
noun intrinsically mean?
We've seen that the following nouns tend to act like numbers:
pagh (which IS a number too)
latlh
'op
Hoch (and HochHom)
bID
and maybe some others I'm not thinking of now.
/'op puS/ seems to me to be as nonsensical as "a few somes," or /wej' puS/
"a few threes." If you're trying to talk about a few things, why not just
modify the "thing" noun with /puS/? /'op puS HIch/ "a few somes pistols"
doesn't make much sense to me, but /'op HIch/ "a few pistols" does, as does
/HIch puS/ "a few pistols."
Also, I don't like the idea of /-qu'/ necessarily increasing the magnitude
of the verb. Yes, it can do this (/HoSghajqu'/ "too potent," Conversational
Klingon), but to assign it a rigid "this is more than this" meaning seems
wrong. I see it as much more fluid (as one might expect of a Rover). It
can mean "too much" (though we now know /tlhoy/), or "a lot," or its basic
(and, in my mind, seriously underutilized) meaning of "emphasis."
/-qu'/ is very much a VERBAL cue, much more so than a point of grammar. One
of my favorite moments of speaking Klingon came during qep'a' wejDIch. A
group of people had spend HOURS playing Encore!, and some of us were getting
a little annoyed with them. At one point I entered the room, made a show of
seeing they were still playing, and said, /SubomlI'be'. SubomtaHqu'!/ The
/-qu'/ made the joke: it is sharp and strong, and really does emphasis what
comes before (in this case, /-taH/. In English, we might say the element or
word we want to emphasize louder, but in Klingon we add /-qu'/ to it (if
it's a verb). The joke wouldn't nearly have been as funny if /-qu'/ didn't
work the way it does.
(I particularly like this because the joke doesn't translate into English.)
Anyway, that's a weeee bit off the original topic. I think that your
sequence is very relative: that is, you can't go make up an isolated
sentence with something like, say, /'op puSqu'/ and expect anyone to know
exactly what you mean. It might work in a limited, marked context.
SuStel
Stardate 1716.2
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