tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 18 13:45:28 2004

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Re: multiple verb suffixes

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

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Lieven Litaer wrote:
> > So we should've made an example of, perhaps, /ghaj/:
> >
> > vIghajnISchoHmoH:
>
> > 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...
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I tried to distinguish those
> using {-qu'} - and it didn't really work. :-/

There was a proposal to use /-qu'/ to differentiate in the examle
/vIghajnISmoH/ between "I need to cause it to have" and "I cause it to
need to have":

vIghajnISqu'moH -- I need to cause it to have.
vIghajnISmoHqu' -- I cause it to need to have.

(ie. you would emphasize that part which specifically relates to the
subject's action, or someting like that)  I think it has potential, but it
fails because if you have three suffixes that need distinguishing, you end
up with more variance:

vIghajnISqu'choHmoH -- I need to cause it to start to have
                     \- I need to start to cause it to have

vIghajnISqu'choHmoHqu' -- I need to cause it to start to have
                        \- I cause it to need to start to have

> But that suffix is still a useful tool to clarify what you mean. What the
> perfect english translation is though; will still remain context related.

Exactly.  My point was that the use of the suffix only really helps if
there are two "competing suffixes", but if there are three, it still
becomes impossible to be exactly precise.

...Paul

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