[tlhIngan Hol] negating adverbials

[De'vID]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 at 03:13, Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:

>
> {reH qaSbe'}
> {tlhoy nI'be' HaSta tavam 'e' vItul}
>
> The intended meanings were “It didn’t always happen” and “I hope this
> visual record is not too long”, respectively, but upon review, it seems
> like out of context (maybe even in context) they mean “it always didn’t
> happen” and “I hope this visual record is too not long”, respectively.
>

There's one canon sentence which might indicate that {-be'} applied to a
verb with an adverbial negates the adverbial:
{Hoch DaSopbe'chugh batlh bIHeghbe'.} "Eat everything or you will die
without honor." (Power Klingon)

But the grammar was never explained, and it's only one example, and
arguably the meaning doesn't change whether the verb or the adverbial is
negated ("one does not die with honour" is the same as "one dies without
honour", if you assume everyone dies, so the statement is true for all
mortals at least).

Possibly relevant:
{nom yIghoSqu'!} "Maximum speed!" (Star Trek V)

Here, the rover {-qu'} is attached to {ghoS}, but the emphasis is actually
being placed on {nom}. Perhaps {-be'} and {-qu'} act on the adverbial under
certain circumstances, such as when the verb has no other suffixes except
the rover (or maybe at most a type 9 suffix), but that would be speculation.

-- 
De'vID
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