tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 15 20:47:34 2004
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Re: multiple verb suffixes
At 08:48 PM 3/15/2004, ngabwI' wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <[email protected]>
>
>
> > now i know that {vIchennISmoH} is grammatically ambiguous, since it means
> > both "i need to create it" (apparently the more common interpretation by
>far) and
> > "i cause it to need to take form".
>
>I think the ambiguity comes from the way "need to" is used in English, and
>the way {-nIS} is used in Klingon. Where "need to" appears in an English
>sentence affects the meaning of the sentence, specifically which agent (the
>subject or the object) does the "needing". OTOH, {-nIS} appears in only one
>place on the verb in Klingon: After any type 1's and before any type 3's. So
>we don't have the linguistic freedom in Klingon that we do in English where
>this idea is concerned.
Could you clarify this? i.e., only the subject does the "needing" when
{-nIS} is used? or
only the object when {-moH} is used with -nIS?
There was a discussion here a while back after -IIRC- Quvar posted a verb
with many stems. That
discussion seemed to indicate that there was a lot of ambiguity in the
interpretation, just as
lay'tel SIvten is indicating.
Another example:
{jIchen} - I take form.
{jIchenchoH} - I begin to take form.
{jIchennISchoH} - I need to begin to take form, or I begin to need to take
form?
Is there only one interpretation, or are both
allowed based on context?
{-moH} really stirs the soup:
{vIchennISchoHmoH} - is there only one interpretation, or a bunch based on
context?
Dar'Qang
bItaghbe'chugh bIrInbe'ba'