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