[tlhIngan Hol] thoughts on the -be'pu' vs -pu'be'

[SuStel]

On 4/29/2020 9:33 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> Assume we need to say "I have begun not to need cherish you". If we
> write {qaQejnISchoHbe'pu'}

Then a Klingon will probably react with as much head-scratching to 
*qaQejnISchoHbe'pu' *as someone in English would react to /I have begun 
not to need to cherish you./ If you translation one convoluted sentence 
into another convoluted sentence, there's no point in worrying that it's 
not simple to understand.

If you bring up such fine points of grammar to the ordinary English 
speaker, most will just shrug and say something like "I dunno. 
Whatever." I think the ordinary Klingon speaker would do the same thing. 
Language is not so precise. It's messy and inconsistent. When you try to 
pin down exact answers to your questions, the natural inconsistencies in 
the language overwhelm your analysis. Language is just how people speak, 
and if people speak imprecisely, then language is imprecise.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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