tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 10 06:25:02 1995
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Re: Gaps in known Klingon grammar?
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Gaps in known Klingon grammar?
- Date: Tue, 10 Jan 95 9:24:57 EST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "A.Appleyard" at Jan 9, 95 9:15 am
According to A.Appleyard:
>
> Mark Shoulson said:-
> > I recall *I* used "orbit" as you mention in a post in response to your use
> > of {tlhej} as though it were a suffix, not in Klingon, but in English,
> > saying "The earth moves through space orbit the sun" as an example of how
> > you *can't* blithely invent prepositions from verbs and stay grammatical.
>
> For "I walk around the outside of the building" he suggested:-
> ---- qach ---- - N:[building|structure]
> ---- HurDaq ---- - N:outside NS5:locative
> ---- gho ---- - N:circle
> ---- rurbogh ---- - V:resemble VS9:which_rel
> ---- HeDaq ---- - N:route_course NS5:locative
> ---- vIyIt ---- - PP:I/[he|it|them] V:walk
>
> (1) I suspect that the reason why Okrand lists {bav} = "orbit" as a verb and
> not also a noun is simply that he has never so far happened to need "orbit"
> as a noun; by analogy with a lot of other words which can be used as both nouns
> and verbs, there seems to be little risk in using {bav} as a noun = "a/the
> orbit".
This is not dissimilar to Proechel's argument that all verbs
can be used as nouns. The vast majority of voices here reject
that argument. Basically, if Okrand wants to use {bav} as a
noun, he has every right to do so. Until he does, we have NO
right to do so.
> I.e. do we treat what Okrand quotes as the whole of (mostly the
> spaceman's variety of) Klingon? Or do we treat it as that subset of Klingon
> that he has needed so far in composing text for Star Trek etc?
The point you conveniently ignore here is that even if what
Okrand presents is a subset of the whole, it is the whole of
that with which we have to work. We cannot allow non-canon
decisions about what that undefined Klingon might be beyond
that which Okrand presents.
Part of the appeal of Klingon for so many people (and certainly
for myself) is the challenge of working with existing tools to
express a wide range of stuff, rather than simply make up new
words to make speaking Klingon easy. Hey, if we want it to be
easy and we all speak English, then why not just make it all
English? Why bother with law'/puS at all? Why not just come up
with new suffixes that indicate comparative and superlative?
And why not just invent a pile of prepositions? Klingon doesn't
have any in TKD, but maybe Klingon really has them, but Okrand
just forgot to mention it. While we are at it, why don't we
borrow from a couple other languages and set aside all our
dificulties with complex relative clauses? Sentence as Subject
construction? Easy. Just make up a new pronoun and a
construction to go with it.
Ever since you brought up this argument, you have received
consistent objections from just about everybody who bothers to
comment. Is there any communication happening here?
> If the latter,
> then can we do what people writing in Tolkien's languages seen to do
> routinely, namely a sensible controlled amount of analogical extension to try
> to reconstruct some of the matter which is so far missing?
In a word, no.
> (2) If that is accepted,...
Well, it isn't.
> my criticized extension **{qachbav vIyIt} = "I walk
> around the building" seems little different from *{qach bav vIyIt} = "I walk an
> orbit of the building". This is much shorter than the above suggested "I walk
> on a route which resembles a circle outside the building".
Well, it isn't.
You seem less interested in speaking Klingon than in creating
your own language without the effort of building the
foundation. Just commandeer Okrand's language. It's much easier
that way.
I hate listening to my own cynicism here. I apologise to
everyone for it, but I frankly lack the resources to respond to
this more politely.
charghwI'
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