tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 16 15:30:38 2004

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Re: multiple verb suffixes

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Lieven Litaer wrote:
> > In English "form" can be an intransitive verb:
>
> That's why it's a bad example in Klingon to talk about suffixes.

I never thought of it that way, but yes, in retrospect, it's definitely a
"bad example".

> Generally, for examples with "cause", don't use words whose english
> translations include the idea of "causing", like {poSmoH}, {HeghmoH} or {chenmoH}

So we should've made an example of, perhaps, /ghaj/:

vIghajnISchoHmoH:

I need to cause it to start to have
I need to start to cause it to have

I'm starting to need to cause it to have
I'm starting to cause it to need to have

I'm causing it to start needing to have
I'm causing it to need to start to have

:)

Unfortunately, using /-qu'/ gets us to down only one "level" -- ie. it may
determine which pair of the above are intended, but still does not
distinguish which of the pairs is correct...

...Paul

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