[2021] in tlhIngan-Hol
{-Ha'} vs {-be'}
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Nov 15 23:05:47 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: DSTRADER@delphi.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 22:54:20 -0400 (EDT)
X-Vms-To: IN%"tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com"
This topic has been amply discussed before, but it's still interesting
enough imesho for me to stick in a word or three edgewise.
Here's the way I feel about it:
These two negator suffixes differ on a semantic level, whereon they negate
a verb to different extents. {-be'} is a neutralizer. It nullifies a verbs
positive semantic value. {-Ha'} on the other hand, negates a verb to the
point of holding the status of 'antonym marker'. That positive value becomes
automatically negative.
To put it in different connotation:
{-be'} = 0
{-Ha'} = -1
{verb} = V
{verb+be'} = V * 0 = 0
{verb+Ha'} = V * -1 = -V
. . . if you really care to load your mind up with a rather pointless
connotation. That's how I see the logic to the {-Ha'} vs {-be'} issue.
Make of it what you will.
I wouldn't consider {parHa'be'} a double negative as we would normally think
of them. At the surface it is the same semantically as {parbe'}, since
{-be'} simply nullifies both of them. It just means "to not like, but not
necessarily dislike either."
Double negatives occur in Klingon (indeed when {-be'} occurs multiple
times in a word, but this is a slightly different matter, since it
sounds stiflingly redundant to say "not" twice in any construction)
when {-be'} is used with one of the other independent negators: these are
{pagh}, {not}, and {wej}. It seems to me that if Klingon even has these
somewhat obscure negators, the tendency originally was not to
use them with a negator. Otherwise, why didn't the word {wej} evolve into
something like "yet" and be commonly used with the negator, as in tera'ngan
Hol. Since the various negators have their own certain level of function
they don't seem to me in line with the Klingon mindset in most cases. The
exceptions occur when one of those neutralizing negators is used with the
antonym marker.
Dap neH 'oH'a' Dochvam'e'
'e' vItulbe'
[hours_from_now] puS vIlaD 'ej jImaw'pu''a' 'e' vIQub
chaq [caffiene] vItlhutlhbogh law' law' [caffiene] vItlhutlhnISbogh law' puS
[caffiene] law'qu' vItlhutlhlaw'
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
