tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 19 07:16:58 2010

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RE: A phrase for the love of Klingons!

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



qurgh:
>>> tlhIngan ghaH bangwI''e' 'e' vIHarta' 'ach verengan ghaHlaw'
>>> I believed my lover was a Klingon, but apparently he's a Ferengi

DloraH:
>> Type 7 after 'e'.

qurgh:
>HIvqa' veqlargh! jInIDqa'.
>
>tlhIngan ghaHta' bangwI''e' 'e' vIHar 'ach verengan ghaHlaw'
>I believed my lover was a Klingon, but apparently he's a Ferengi

You're thinking in English.  You don't need {-ta'} on {ghaH}, it's just a simple past tense (he was a Klingon, he is a Klingon, etc.).  We do have a single example of a perfective suffix on a pronoun:

  pa' jIHpu'be' 
  I wasn't there. TKD

so if you insist on making it perfective, you can use {-pu'}.  OTOH {-ta'} "accomplished" implies that "an activity was deliberately undertaken, the implication being that someone set out to do something and in fact did it" (TKD 41).  For that matter is a pronoun-as-verb actually an "activity" (which I take to mean an action verb, not a quality)?

Now that you've dropped the {-ta'} you can highlight the contrast with {-law'} "apparently" by using another Type 6 suffix like {-ba'} "obviously" or {-bej} "certainly, undoubtedly, definitely".

Also consider other verbs:  e.g. {Da} "behave as, act in the manner of", {ghet} "pretend", {Qaq} "behave falsely honorably, behave in a falsely honorable manner":

  tlhIngan ghaH 'e' vIHar 'ach verengan Da bangwI''e'!

 
-- 
Voragh                          
Canon Master of the Klingons






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