[Tlhingan-hol] "I don't always..."

[De'vID]

De'vID:
>> How would you render "I don't always drink beer"? It seems to be
>> negating an adverbial.

SuStel:
> Well, adverbials have been negated by verbs before, as in {Hoch
> DaSopbe'chugh batlh bIHeghbe'} "eat everything or you will die without
> honor." So we might be able to get away with {reH HIq vItlhutlhbe'}. (I'm
> not going to try to distinguish beer from any other kind of alcohol for the
> purposes of this discussion.)

But won't that mean "Always I don't drink alcohol", i.e., "I never
drink alcohol"? And how would this be different from {not HIq
vItlhutlh}?

SuStel:
> We also know that adverbials can be reversed with {-Ha'}, although there is
> no formal rule that does this. We haven't seen an instance of {reHHa'}, but
> one might conjecture {reHHa' HIq vItlhutlh}.

It's not clear when {-Ha'} can be attached to an adverbial. But even
if *{reHHa'} were possible, it seems like it would mean something like
{not}.

SuStel:
> A definitely legal way to say this might be {reH HIq vItlhutlh 'e' vItem} "I
> deny that I always drink alcohol."

But that doesn't mean he doesn't always drink alcohol, it means that
he denies it (it might be true that he always drinks alcohol).

lay'tel SIvten:
> Take out the negative: "Sometimes I drink beer, and when I do, I prefer Dos Equis."

Yeah, technically it means the same thing, but it just doesn't... pack
the same punch.

-- 
De'vID