tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 28 06:07:15 1995
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Re: bIjatlh 'e' yImev
I genuinely do not wish to disrespect your interest or efforts
here. I also have difficulty following your argument, since you
seem to be arguing against yourself. Hence:
According to [email protected]:
>
> RE: peH
>
> The source is <peHghep>, true enough. However, tantamount to a Klingon's
> finding significance in "fath" of "father," as realistic as that false
> finding proves to be, <peH> is a distinct syllable of a compound Klingon
> word.
Since many Klingon nouns are polysyllabic, there is no strong
reason to presume that this one is compound. The elements of
the word would be in TKD if it were. Okrand is essentially the
only person who can decide what is a word and what is not. We
have license to create new compound nouns by combining existing
nouns. We do not have license to do the reverse, as you point
out later. My question is, since you point out later that we
can't do this, why are you doing this?
> I can easily do the same process in Chinese. When I see two
> characters written in combination, I can distinguish singular meanings of
> each. Because I am bi-lingual in English and Mandarin, I have learned to
> "feel" the nuances of words which do not translate discretely.
Few things make Okrand angry faster than suggesting that
Klingon is like a specific Human language. It may very well be
true that Mandarin does this with its characters, but you
cannot presume that Klingon behaves the same way. I know this
sounds harsh and judgemental on my part, but the truth is, you
CAN notice how Klingon shares a trait with another language,
but you CANNOT presume that because another language has a
trait, Klingon behaves similarly. That is the threshold you
seem to have crossed here, and that is why I have difficulty
with your argument.
> So....
>
> The Klingon will discover after a little further research that "fath" was,
> after all, a false assumption and move on to analysis of another kind. Let's
> keep looking at the Klingon language repository until we discover whether
> <peH> (and similar extractions from compound words) have any discrete
> meaning. Marc Okrand has already warned against just such extractions:
> viz. <jonta'> contains <jon> which may not have any discrete meaning related
> to "engines."
Okay, so why are you not heeding that specific warning?
charghwI'
--
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