[tlhIngan Hol] {je} "too" with negative meanings on the second sentence

Will Martin willmartin2 at mac.com
Wed Nov 10 15:45:46 PST 2021


Again, I think it comes down to that Klingon has a verb conjunction {‘ej} and an adverbial {je} that are closely related. There is no adverbial that is closely related to {‘ach}.

X and Y, too.

X and not Y, however.

Klingon has the adverbial “too”, but not an adverbial “however”.

> On Nov 10, 2021, at 1:49 PM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2021 at 15:07, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name <mailto:sustel at trimboli.name>> wrote:
> On 11/10/2021 7:50 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> And so on. So I don't think you'd combine 
> 
> yaS luHoHpu'
> and
> 'a be' luHoHpu'be' je
> 
> in this way. Here, you're changing both the object and the verb.
> 
> Just say yaS luHoHpu' 'a be' luHoHpu'be' They killed the officer but they didn't kill the woman. The 'a but handles the unexpectedness of the woman not also being killed. If you wanted to emphasize the exception, you could say something like yaS luHoHpu' 'a yIntaHbe' 'e' luchaw' They killed the man but they permitted the woman to live.
> 
> I can see how the example sentence might have come about, though.
> 
> Suppose I were to say:
> {yaS luHoHpu'. be' luHoHpu' je.} "They killed the officer. They killed the woman also [i.e., they killed the woman, in addition to the officer]."
> 
> Nothing controversial there. Now suppose that I'm reporting back to someone who is expecting me to say the above. Maybe I'm a hostage negotiator and things are going badly, and I leave the building where the terrorists have just killed at least one hostage to report to the police chief. I say:
> {yaS luHoHpu'. 'ach be' luHoHpu'be' je.} "They killed the officer. But they didn't kill the woman also [i.e., kill the woman, in addition to the officer]."
> 
> I don't even think the English sentences sound strange here. If you think of it as applying {je} to the negated sentence, then it looks like too many things have changed at once for {je} to be applicable. But I think of the above example as applying the {-be'} to {be' luHoHpu' je}. And I don't think the meaning is quite exactly the same with {'a} but no {je}. There's a difference between "They didn't kill the woman" and "They didn't kill the woman also", namely, one of emphasis. "They killed the officer, but they didn't kill the woman" is a matter-of-fact statement. "They killed the officer, but they didn't kill the woman also" has the implication that "things could've been worse". 
> 
> I don't think there was anything wrong with the Klingon sentence and it could make sense in context.
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
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