tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 14 10:09:21 1996
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Re: <K'>vaD ghItlhlu''a'?
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: <K'>vaD ghItlhlu''a'?
- Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 12:16:32 -0500 ()
- Priority: NORMAL
On Thu, 14 Nov 1996 06:36:37 -0800 "Mark E. Shoulson"
<[email protected]> wrote:
I really like your voobles and Kronstints. It makes a good
point. Meanwhile, I'd like to point out the one and only
exception to your rules that I've found in an Okrandian
canonical source:
janluq pIqarD HoD -- as noted in: HolQeD v5n3p15
^^
Needless to say, this is an odd case of transliterating a Fed
Standard proper name, but it is the one case in which Okrand
made this exception. I mean he even used {'entepray'} to avoid
an alien kronstint cluster at the end of a syllable, yet
John-Luc gets special treatment.
charghwI'
> I think a lot of this is word-games. From what we've seen in Klingon, the
> facts are these:
>
> 1) All syllables begin with a single Kronstint (with the exception of the
> suffix -oy), where Kronstints are b,ch,D,gh,H,j,l,m,ng,p,q,Q,r,S,t,tlh,
> v,w,y,'.
>
> 2) all syllables have exactly one vooble, where voobles are defined as
> a,e,I,o,u, which follows the Kronstint.
>
> 3) A syllable may end with:
>
> a) nothing after the vooble
>
> b) a single Kronstint after the vooble (provided that if the vooble is u
> or o, the closing Kronstint can't be w)
>
> c) the structure "-rgh" (call it a cluster, a phoneme, whatever) after
> the vooble
>
> d) structures "-y'" or "-w'" after the vooble (provided that if the
> vooble is u or o, the structure can't be -w')
>
> Now, that's what we know about the syllable structure. Note that much of
> it isn't spelled out, but only known from inspection of the lexicon. Lest
> you think that's taking too many liberties, I point out that it is only
> through inspection of the lexicon that we come to the conclusion that
> initial consonant cluster are fobidden, and I think most of us will agree
> to that, given the lengths to which Okrand has gone to avoid them. So if
> you will say that the above is not complete because it was never explcitly
> explicitly stated to be so, you must also permit words like "*jqIm" and
> "*mmapq".
>
> Given the above, it sounds like a lot of the fighting is over what to call
> things. You could come up with a set of rules that produced exactly the
> same set of syllables by dividing things up differently, saying instead
> that after the consonant (which I called a Kronstint above to use made-up
> words that I could define as I wanted), there must come a vowel or a
> diphthong, with appropriate definitions and then restrictions on the end
> (only ' may follow a diphthong, rgh has its own exception, etc). And
> that's as valid a description as this. Because that's all these are:
> DESCRIPTIONS. Emphasis on the DE-. They are not PRESCRIPTIONS. Do we
> know for *sure* that you can't have another consonant after -ay aside
> from '? No more than we know you can't have initial clusters. All this is
> presumed from what we have and lack evidence for.
>
> So I'm not all that concerned with what you call things. Call them voobles
> and Kronstints for all I care.
>
> ~mark