tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 21 21:33:18 1996
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Re: An offer you shouldn't refuse!
- From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
- Subject: Re: An offer you shouldn't refuse!
- Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 23:38:12 -0500
Kenneth Traft writes:
> ...I like his [Glen Proechel's] extended family member contructions.
> Aunt: SoS be'nI' (mother's sister)
> vav be'nI' (father's sister)
> Uncle: SoS loDnI' (mother's brother)
> vav loDnI' (father's brother)
> Cousin: vav loDnI' puq (uncle's child)
> vav be'nI' puq (uncle's child)
> SoS be'nI' puq (Aunt's child)
> Sos loDnI' puq (Aunt's child)
> (a couple - are there other specific one's that are offensive?)
These are all straighforward noun-noun constructions, and as such are
not unreasonable. However --
In Glen's article "Extending Klingon Kinship Terms" in HolQeD 2:3, he
proposed using the particle {-nI'} as a generic "kinship" suffix. It
was actually put a bit more strongly than a mere proposal:
"{puqnI'} is clearly *grandchild*..."
I'm sorry, but it's far from clear to *me* that this is the case. He
also said that {vavnI''a'} is "the only possible choice" to translate
"great grandfather", and {loDnI''a'} could be "cousin" -- wejpuH.
The entire article is based on the presumption that we can deduce the
word formation rules by analyzing a *very* few examples (four, in this
case), and generalizing to create new vocabulary. I disagree strongly
with this position. It's perhaps worse because the "new vocabulary"
proposed is completely unnecessary.
-- Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist