tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 18 15:32:43 2001

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Re: 'op puS qechmey vIghaj



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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