tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 25 01:31:24 1994
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re shrubbery
- From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
- Subject: re shrubbery
- Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 13:27:40 -0400
- In-Reply-To: "William H. Martin"'s message of Sun, 24 Jul 94 18:21:24 EDT <[email protected]>
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Sun, 24 Jul 94 18:21:24 EDT
>According to Susan Farmer:
>>
>>
>>
>> I don't have the TKD handy, but the difference in a tree and a shrub is
>> *not* the size. You can have dwarf trees, and giagantic shrubs.
>> Botanically, a shrub is a woody plant with an indeterminate braching
>> pattern. (Whereas a tree has a specific or determinate branch pattern)
>>
>> Susan tIHaDwI' (who is contemplating Tevram as a name (saw it in a print
>> queue at work and
>> thought it sounded
>One of the most common misunderstandings in Klingon is the one
>that the suffixes {-'a'} and {-Hom} are related to size. If this
>were true, we would have no need of the adjectival verbs {mach}
>and {tIn}. The diminutive and augmentative suffixes CAN refer to
>size, but they more properly refer to SIGNIFICANCE. I would
>suggest that a shrub is a lot like a tree, except that it is
>rather less than a tree, and so I use {SorHom}. If I were merely
>referring to a small tree, I'd use {Sor mach}.
I just want to throw in my voice to support charghwI' here. It's a common
problem; I think you really have to try to think in terms of languages that
have augmentitives/diminutives in order to get this right... if you can.
Perhaps think that a "shrub" is a "tree-let" or something. It's not size
that matters, or at least not absolute size, but quality. A large shrub
may be bigger than a small tree, but that doesn't affect the -Hom/-'a'
distinction. Argh, this is hard to explain.
>If I were referring to a Giant Sequoia, I would use {Sor'a'},
>but not just because it is big. It is also ancient. To stand
>before a being that is between 2,000 and 3,000 years old is
>very special. There is a very special spiritual silence that
>came over me when I saw them, and so, a Sequoia is not merely
>{Sor tIn}. It is {Sor'a'}.
May be... but for reasons unrelated to its size, as you say. A "Sor'a'"
doesn't mean "big tree", it means something more like "a *TREE*".
>charghwI'
~mark