Re: adverbials with -Ha'

[Angghal@aol.com]

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