[tlhIngan Hol] laj lajQo' {-vIp} and imperatives

[Will Martin]

On the one hand, {-Ha’} and {-Qo’} are immovable rovers simply because they are. It’s just an arbitrary point of grammar in Klingon, similar to many arbitrary points of grammar in any other language.

Meanwhile, I can see the logic behind these suffixes appearing as they do. {-Ha’} naturally applies to the verb root, essentially creating a kind of antonym, then modified by all the other suffixes to make the core sentence. Yes, there can be imagined cases where you might want to do otherwise, but generally speaking, {-Ha’} naturally applies to the root verb.

{-Qo’} most typically applies to the entire action of the sentence. “Don’t” do whatever the whole sentence tells you, including all the affixes.” Again, you might be able to imagine a case different from this, but clearly the majority of cases fits this pattern.

Sent from my iPhone. 
charghwI’

> On Jun 8, 2019, at 1:05 PM, Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 8, 2019, at 06:54, Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Note that {-be’} is the only suffix that can be used more than once in a Klingon verb, since it is the only true roving suffix, and it specifically negates whatever it follows.
> 
> Isn’t {-qu'} also a “true rover”? TKD has the examples {pIHoHqu'vIpbe' / pIHoHvIpqu'be' / pIHoHvIpbe'qu'} to illustrate this. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to use {-qu'} in more than one of those positions at the same time.
> 
> I’ve often wondered why Klingon grammarians insist on calling {-Ha'} and {-Qo'} rovers. Were they true rovers at some earlier point in the language’s history? I can imagine something like *{pIHoHQo'vIp} meaning “we are afraid to refuse to kill you” or *{pIHoHvIpHa'} meaning “we are improperly afraid to kill you”, so it doesn’t seem totally crazy. Or is there some properly of {-Ha'} and {-Qo'} that they have in common with the true rovers? Semantically, they do seem to serve a similar role. With their prescribed positions, however, it does seem to me that {-Qo'} is meant to bind to the entire verbal phrase (excepting syntactic marker) and {-Ha'} is meant to bind to the verb root.
> 
> Somewhat recently De'vID analyzed all canon uses of {-Ha'}. In his summary of his analysis, he pointed out that although TKD says only {-qu'} is allowed on a stative verb acting as an adjective, we have canon examples of both {-be'} and {-Ha'} being placed on adjective verbs as well. Only {-Qo'} is unattested in this position. Perhaps the actual rule is that only *rovers* are allowed to accompany adjective-verbs, and we just haven’t seen any examples of {-Qo'}. Or it’s something like “rovers except {-Qo'}”.
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