On 5/7/2019 3:27 PM, Jeffrey Clark wrote:
Except *qar'a'* is a recognized feature of the language, while *qarbe''a'* is not. I don't think Klingons who hear *qar'a'* are thinking that it means /is it correct?/ It would come across to them more like /amiright?/ It's a thing you say, not a sentence to be parsed.
While I agree that Klingon’s likely don’t parse it that way intuitively, the idiomatic understanding is clearly derived from it’s literal meaning.
qarbe’’a’ is both grammatical and parseable — if not commonly heard as an idiomatic expression. Likely {muj’a’} would be more direct; but playing on {qar’a’}, the {qarbe’’a’} seems like it would signal the asker’s increased doubt rather than uncertainty — shades of meaning.
Yes. But a Klingon hearing *qarbe''a'* would not simply reverse the sense of *qar'a';* he or she would have to parse it as a separate sentence, and so their alertness would be raised. The two are not, I think, as interchangeable as your post suggests. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name