tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 02 13:38:05 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: tlhIngan Hol qun
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: tlhIngan Hol qun
- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 16:33:34 -0500
tlhIngan Hol qunHey qeltaHvIS ja' "AnthonyAppleyard":
> In the pronoun table, the only connections that I can see are that (1) All
>the free-standing personal pronouns end with {H}, and (2) {jiH} = "I" and
>{maH} = "we" are the corresponding "and no object" prefixes + {H}; but this
>does not hold in the other persons. I see no way to derive the MK personal
>pronoun system from a simple set of separate subject and object pronouns;
>perhaps it is a worn-down remnant of an ancient complicated Japanese-type
>system of honorific words and self-deprecatory words plus some surviving
older
>pronouns; perhaps such words were taken for cultural reasons from some other
>of the many languages that were likely spoken on Qo'noS in pre-industrial
>times, as Japanese took cultural words from Chinese, and English from Latin.
First, as anyone may have guessed, I feel compelled to toss out a disclaimer
here. All that I write here is purely speculative. Keeping that in mind, I
wish others to watch my back in case I accidentally go a little too far in
these speculations, i.e., when I start coming up with speculations that are
based only on other speculations, then you know I've crossed the line. Flag
me down if that happens.
I am particularly intrigued by this one paragraph wherein Appleyard deals
with the pronoun system, saying that it appears that a few of the personal
pronouns are only [verb-prefix]+[H], tho this is only a broad generalization
(applying to only 2 pronoun/prefix pairs of the 40- or 50-some). Still, when
one looks at the modern English system of pronouns, and the old one, one'll
understand where I'm coming from on this. Pronouns and prefixes are in such
frequent use that they are in constant flux. You also dealt in your post with
the OSV order in toast, possibly remnant of some archaic syntax. My hunch is
that AK was OSV, and that all the prefixes were formed by the two consecutive
pronouns merging and then hooking up permanently to the verb. Of course the
main question is how do I get {re-} < {tlhIH maH} and so forth. Well, I'm
allowing for several millenia of flux. A bit of a stretch, I know, but some
other features of Klingon support such a claim. I'll dig up some notes I had
from a discussion about Klingon possibly originating from an ergative form,
the largest basis for which is the {-lu'} suffix and the prefix phenomenon
associated therewith.
Guido