tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 26 00:40:11 2006
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Klingon phonotactics (was Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month la
- From: Philip Newton <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon phonotactics (was Re: Klingon at the Thanksgiving table - A month la
- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:39:39 +0100
- Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=a/gY9sJ8iXkbE0P668hbs7Qm2htS0Xs1CO9twnIMh4352FqN1EL9DCqAEmnrc2OcKj6AoRHOC1eMlFeJNpeBZJFaFJswzGyGkRQk4Z1PGg1q30BOxvi8gLxcdYqsky2/uWh4Jugim57vOiqErmTQgEW+q8QXDuJj91MRDW9/x14=
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]>
- References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
On 1/26/06, Russ Perry Jr <[email protected]> wrote:
> At 10:38 AM +1000 1/26/06, QeS 'utlh wrote:
> > (would it be {jawoy} "beloved Lord" or ??{jaw'oy}?).
>
> Uh... I'm not familiar with ?{oy} or ?{'oy}, but you'd pronounce it
> the way it was spelled. Is there a suffic ?{oy} AND ?{'oy}?
No, there's only a suffix {oy}. However, its use is only attested on
words ending in a consonant; it is not known for sure what happens
when you add it to a word ending in a vowel.
TKD, however, provides this guess: "Though there are no examples, it
is suspected that for those few nouns which end in a vowel, {'} is
inserted before this suffix."
For that reason, whether {w} in {aw} is a vowel or not is important in
determining what the diminutive of {jaw} would be -- if it were a
vowel, then {jawoy} would be an invalid word, since the second
syllable does not begin with a vowel, and (by TKD's guess) the word
would have to be {jaw'oy} instead. If, on the other hand, the {w} in
{jaw} is a consonant, then {jawoy} is legal, while {jaw'oy} would be
something different.
Also, if a {w} or {y} after a vowel is also considered a vowel, as
part of a diphthong, and if TKD's conjecture is correct, then a word
such as {Duy'oy} would be ambiguous between "dear agent" and "dear
defect". (While the difference in semantics should be clear from
context, I consider the ambiguous morphology unaesthetic.)
--
Philip Newton <[email protected]>
HovpoH 5221.80