tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 24 22:37:09 1994

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Re: Generic Ideas

Paul,

     Suffixes in Klingon serve the same kind of function as "helping words"
(adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, articles, etc.) in English. Nobody makes
the combinations of helping words in English work with the kind of
consistency you ask of suffixes in Klingon, yet English seems to get along
quite nicely with all these inconsistencies.

     Also, English probably has a lot more suffixes than prefixes. You just
consider them to be parts of the word, like -ed, -ing, -s, -'s, -sion, -tion,
-ation, -ition, -ship, -ment, -ful... We love to nominalize and we usually do
it through suffixes. We even add suffixes to words in order to get them back
to their roots, like (eeew) "orientate", which is exactly like "orient",
except that "orient" (v) was nominalized to "orientation", then cut back to
"orientate" when they wanted the verbal form of "orientation" and forgot that
it came from "orient".

     I live in an intentional community where people always use the verb
"consense" to talk about reaching "consensus". The problem is that the noun
came from "consent", so instead of saying "we consensed on it," We SHOULD be
saying "We consented to it." But we've become so fond of our suffixes that we
are unwilling to let go of them, even when they are inappropriate...

     Consider that "a-" in English usually means "without reference to", as
in "asexual", "agnostic", "asymmetrical" and "assorted". I had a revellation
about that last word recently. It really means, "without reference to
sorting." The prefix "non-" usually means "not", "without" or "opposite of".
"Nongreasy", "nonfat", "nonviolent". Then again, we screw up with words like
"nonjudgemental", which should probably be "ajudgemental", and we have
reversed "atheistic" and "nontheistic" altogether from what they "should" be.

     Languages don't always work easily and smoothly. Deal with it.

charghwI'

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