[tlhIngan Hol] Imperatives and type nine suffixes

[Ed Bailey]

On Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 6:36 PM Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:

> I don’t remember ever seeing a rule against using type nine verb suffixes
> with an imperative prefix. At the same time, I also cannot think of any
> sane reason one would want to do this, nor can I coax any example I can
> think of where a verb has both an imperative prefix and a type nine suffix
> into making any kind of sense.
>
> I’m pretty sure that type nine suffixes and imperative prefixes can’t
> coexist, but maybe I’m just not being imaginative enough. Can anybody think
> of an example where a type nine suffix somehow marks an imperative verb and
> actually means something useful?
>

Possibly it seems like there's no sane reason because literal translation
won't work. Likewise, Klingons might think it's insane to have a sentence
like, "Identify the ship in which he fled!" Languages have plenty of
expressions that don't make literal sense, like "What does God need with a
starship?"

While there's no reason to believe Type 9 suffixes are ever used on verbs
with imperative prefixes, who wants to walk into a bar full of Klingons and
tell them they're not allowed to? So let's suppose Klingons actually do
this and we cobble together an example and try to figure out what meaning
it's supposed to convey. For instance, **yIruchchugh bIQap!* Weird, but I'd
guess it's something like a condensed version of *yIruch! bIruchchugh bIQap* or
*yIruch bIruchchugh bIQapmo'!* Perhaps it's more exhortative than
imperative.

~mIp'av
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