On 7/6/2017 11:27 AM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:

SuStel:

> pa' SoHtaHbe'chugh vaj meyrI' SoH

if you are not there then you are a square

The placement of {-be'} confuses me. If we choose to place it after the {-taH} then doesn't the meaning become "If you aren't there continuously" ?

Perhaps this is indeed the intented meaning, the speaker trying to say "if you aren't continuously there, then..".

But wouldn't you accept, as a more literal way of saying "If you aren't there.." the {pa' SoHbe'taHchugh..} ?

The only reasoning I see for placing the {-be'} after the {-taH}, is if we consider (because of the {pa'}) the {SoHtaH} as an "unable to be separated pair of words", thus leaving as an only option the placement of the {-be'} after it.

Since we've gotten some examples of it, I believe -be' doesn't necessarily negate only the single, immediately preceding element, but it can refer to the entire preceding concept, especially for suffixes that aren't typically negated. So what I said was meant as [SoHtaH]be'chugh instead of SoH[taH]be'chugh.

A canonical example of this is from Power Klingon: Hoch DaSopbe'chugh batlh bIHeghbe' if you don't eat everything you will die without honor. Clearly, -be' here is referring to the entire phrase batlh bIHegh and not just the Hegh.

Another example from Conversational Klingon is vIta'pu'be' I didn't do it. This doesn't mean I did it in a non-perfective way; the entire verb before the -be' is being negated as a unit.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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