tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 11 06:59:57 1993
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Power Klingon
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: Power Klingon
- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 09:59:19 -0500
- In-Reply-To: Will Martin's message of Wed, 10 Nov 93 10:22:53 EST <[email protected]>
>From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 10:22:53 EST
>Now...
>On Nov 10, 9:48am, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> Subject: Power Klingon
>> >#There's also "Don't lick my forehead" which
>> >#sounds a lot like "QuchwIj DroSQo'", which represents, if I hear aright,
>> >an innovation in Klingon words, as "?DroSQo'" starts with a consonant
>> >cluster.
>>
>> >I suspected when I read this, and wasn't disconfirmed on listening, that
>> >the word is probably DeroSQo' (cf. tera'ngan, pronounced tra'ngan)
>>
>> Maybe. Then again, the way he pronounces the sounds, he'd have put in that
>> obscure vowel even if it really *were* {?DroSQo'}. We also have never seen
>> a Klingon *verb* root that was polysyllabic before. But given a choice
>> between a polysyllabic verb plus faulty pronunciation by Okrand and a
>> consonant-cluster initial, I think I'd rather believe the former.
>ghIDIj, HeSo' and HoSghaj are polysyllabic verb roots. Yes, they are
>rare, but they do exist, like open vowels at syllable end without glottal
>stops (as in HaSta). Still, DeroSQo' suffers from the "r" not clearly
>belonging to the first or second syllable. I would have expected "De'roSQo'"
>or "DerroSQo'". Otherwise, either the first or second syllable involves an
>open vowel. My suspicion is that the first syllable would need that, since as
>rare as occurances may be of vowels without following consonants, I have
>never seen a vowel without a PRECEEDING consonant.
Good point; I had ignored {HoSghaj} and {He'So'} and even {ghIpDIj} (not
spellings) because they seemed to be compounds (certainly {HoSghaj}, and
probably {He'So'} with a no-longer-used form of {So'}, and possible
{ghIpDIj} too), while {?DeroS} seemed not to be of the form of a compound
(no consonant cluster in the middle). But then again, Jacques Guy points
out that it's perfectly conceivable for it to be {De-roS}, with a
vowel-final element {*De}, so why not? No Klingon word known starts with a
vowel, and in fact the only morpheme that does that we know of is "-oy".
>Methinks SOMEBODY has to go TALK TO OKRAND AND FIGURE OUT WHAT THIS VERB
>REALLY WAS INSTEAD OF ARGUING WITH EACH OTHER ABOUT IT. There is, after all,
>no other authoritive way to settle this. As much as he may choose to remain
>silent about other things, the man could at LEAST share the proper spelling
>of new words he introduces into his audio tapes.
Much of this is an exercise in futility until we can get to Okrand, yes.
~mark