tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 16 13:35:08 2004

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Re: multiple verb suffixes

Lieven Litaer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol ghojwI']

> > > now i know that {vIchennISmoH} is grammatically ambiguous, since it
...
> >I think the ambiguity comes from the way "need to" is used in English,
...
> {-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. 

stems? many suffixes!

> discussion seemed to indicate that there was a lot of ambiguity in the 
> interpretation, 
> Is there only one interpretation, or are both 
> allowed based on context?

Correct, Klingon is always very much context-related. You don't even need
many syllables to show this. Just think what {Hegh} can mean (to name a few:
death, die, he/she/they/it have/will/do etc...).

Back to the suffix order:
I think that is one of the things that makes Klingon *easy*, not difficult.
If you want to make a sentence that includes the ideas "need", "cause",
"change" - whatever - just look at the suffix type order and write it. No need to
think if they say "need cause" or "cause need"...

While reading of course this might be more complicated, but that happens
with many languages. One can't just translate a word or sentence, you need to
know what the topic is.

I have a headache, a sister, and a cup of tea. 
What does "have" mean in Klingon??? ;-)

Quvar.

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