tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 24 06:58:42 1995
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Klingon syllable structure
On Wed, 24 May 1995 09:27:56 -0400, "Mark J. Reed" <[email protected]> said:
> Someone just recently posted the phonology rules, but here's a summary,
> as I understand them. A Klingon syllable consists of a consonant,
> followed by a vowel, followed by a consonant. The final consonant is
> optional. The first consonant is optional in non-initial syllables,
> such as the suffix {-oy}, although syllables without the first
> consonant are rare.
I don't think there is sufficient support for this last statement.
First, to say `non-initial syllables, such as the suffix {-oy}' is
to imply that you know, or at least expect, that there are others
like {-oy}. In reality {-oy} is our only example of a morpheme
which is not a well-formed syllable (or a sequence of well-formed
syllables), and, for aught we know, it may well be the only such
morpheme existing in the language.
Second, at least if the root ends in a consonant, {-oy} does not
create a vowel-initial syllable: neither {va-voy} nor {tar-ghoy}
contain one. There would be a vowel-initial syllable in {tI-oy},
but Okrand explicitly says that this most likely does not happen;
his own guess (not confirmed by Maltz yet) is {tI-'oy}.
So I think the first consonant is obligatory.
--'Iwvan