tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 26 12:47:18 2002
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Re: adverbials with -Ha'
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: adverbials with -Ha'
- Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:46:53 EDT
ghItlh voragh:
>Here {batlh bIHeghbe'} doesn't mean merely "you won't die" but that
>"you won't die honorably".(I'll leave the question of whether "dying
>without honor" {batlh Heghbe'} is the same as "dying dishonorably"
>{batlhHa' Hegh} for another thread.)--
These are exactly the sorts of questions I like. Let me spin it slightly
differently, to make the point clear.
Does the sentence {batlh bIHeghbe'} mean
1) you will die dishonorably.
2) you won't die honorably.
I'm inclined to think it's #2. Klingon is all about the verbs, the action, in
this case "die." The we know the suffix modifies the verb, but then that's
what an adverbial does too. Which has primacy, {-be'} or {batlh}? Does
{batlh} tell us the manner in which you don't die, or does {-be'} tell us
that your honorably dying is negated?
In this instance, we can fudge, because we have the adverb {batlhHa'}. So
although I understand the point Voragh was making in his point, I have to
disagree.
But for me, the larger question is how you handle negated verbs with other
adverbials (particularly ones which don't have opposites or cannot take
{-Ha'}).
I can't help but wonder if the examples from TKW are simply cleaned up
translations that sound better to Federation ears than a more literal
rendering might.
Or maybe I'm just being too picky.
Lawrence