[tlhIngan Hol] Expressing "underwear"

[nIqolay Q]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 7:09 AM mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> SuStel:
> > I don't think the Klingon verb vuvHa' disrespect means this. I think vuv
> > refers to how someone feels about someone else, not how someone treats
> someone else.
>
> I always wondered, if we have the {-Ha'} on a word, which could take
> different meaning depending on whether we read the {-Ha'} as "mis-",
> "-de", or "-dis", then how would we decide which of the three was to
> be understood.
>
> Unfortunately though, I can't think of an example right now..
>

Context.

For instance, *mutlhHa'* could mean "disassemble, take apart" or "assemble
wrongly". If I shout at my roommate *torgh! yorghmey DamutlhHa'pu' jay'!*,
do I mean "Torg, you've taken apart the goddamn shelves!" or "Torg, you've
put the goddamn shelves together wrong!"? It could go either way. In this
case, you need to consider the previous and current status of the shelves.

If Torg said he was going to make a minor repair to the bookshelf, and I
come back to discover that the entire bookshelf has been reduced to its
component pieces, then I probably mean the first one. The bookshelf was
assembled, now it is not, so the "undo" meaning of *-Ha'* seems more likely.

If Torg said he was going to put together the bookshelf he brought home
from the Ikea System, and the end result has twelve screws left over and no
right angles, then I probably mean the second one. The bookshelf was
unassembled, now it is poorly assembled, so the "do wrongly" meaning of
*-Ha'* seems more likely.

Even if you couldn't tell which specific meaning of *-Ha'* I had in mind,
you might still be able to provide an interpretation that could include
both meanings: "Torg, you've fucked up the goddamn shelves!" And if you
still can't tell, there's always *nuqjatlh?*

If you're writing a sentence with an ambiguous *-Ha'* and want to make it
clear, you can add another sentence afterwards, like they do in Krotmag:
*torgh! yorghmey DamutlhHa'pu' jay'! DaH 'ay'mey Doj neH bIH!* *Torgh,
you've fucked up the goddamn shelves! Now they're just a pile of parts!*
*torgh! yorghmey DamutlhHa'pu' jay'! tu'HomI'raH DachenmoHpu'!* *Torgh,
you've fucked up the goddamn shelves! You've made something useless!*

(Or you could just use *lagh* "take apart, disassemble", which I forgot
about until after I'd thought of this example.)
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