tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 19 19:38:39 2002
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Re: Klingon WOTD: wagh (v)
On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Alan Anderson wrote:
> ja' ...Paul:
> >Keep in mind, the root { lo' } means "use". { lo'laH } means valuable in
> >terms of "useful", { lo'laHbe' } means worthless in terms of "unusable",
> >no?
>
> Not necessarily. {lo'laH} itself is a root; it's not the same idea as the
> verb {lo'} plus the suffix {-laH}.
>
> [I was thinking about this while raking leaves this afternoon, and it
> occurs to me that it resembles a verbified version of a compound noun {lo'}
> "use" + {laH} "ability". This ngerHom is slightly more appealing to me
> than the idea that the verb {lo'} might have been a rare "two-way" verb
> like {meQ} and {tagh} at one time, but isn't anymore.]
Actually, I was re-reading my TKD last night and noticed that "lo'laH" and
"chenmoH" are both used as examples in the explanatory text. I was
thinking about whether or not one could actually say something like
"lo'laHchoH" -- "make useful" -- but the problem is, the suffixes are in
the wrong order IFF you only look at "lo'". Now, since these particular
"pre-configured verbs" are referenced as examples within the text of the
grammar section, I'm wondering if they're really to be considered root
verbs, or if they were copied over as examples of how the definitions may
be completely different in English compared to Klingon.
Of course, I'm certain people have already pointed this out. What I'm not
sure of is if there was ever a concensus reached that a construction like
"lo'laHchoH" is actually acceptable; personally I'd be inclined to
reconfigure it to "lo'choHlaH" just to be safe, but occasionally it would
be useful to say things like "chenmoHmoH" ("cause to create") which would
not otherwise be at all legal...
...Paul
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