tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 09 05:54:16 1995

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Re: Gaps in known Klingon grammar?

Mark Shoulson said:-
> "nagh DungDaq" [= stone's region_above in = above the stone] using a *NOUN*
> of position (Dung) and the normal locative suffix (-Daq). Maybe some *nouns*
> for "area nearby" and so on would be handy.

They would be handy. Remember that {-Daq} is also a separate noun for
"location": from {nagh Daq} = "the stone's location" to {naghDaq} = "at the
stone" is an easy step which several words likely followed as some unrecorded
change in ancient Klingon (perhaps a general loss of final vowels) destroyed
whatever previous way it had (e.g. a Latin-style locative case) to say "at X".

He said to me:-
> I recall *I* used "orbit" as you mention in a post in response to your use
> of {tlhej} as though it were a suffix, not in Klingon, but in English,
> saying "The earth moves through space orbit the sun" as an example of how
> you *can't* blithely invent prepositions from verbs and stay grammatical.

For "I walk around the outside of the building" he suggested:-
---- qach ----         - N:[building|structure]
---- HurDaq ----       - N:outside NS5:locative
---- gho ----          - N:circle
---- rurbogh ----      - V:resemble VS9:which_rel
---- HeDaq ----        - N:route_course NS5:locative
---- vIyIt ----        - PP:I/[he|it|them] V:walk

(1) I suspect that the reason why Okrand lists {bav} = "orbit" as a verb and
not also a noun is simply that he has never so far happened to need "orbit"
as a noun; by analogy with a lot of other words which can be used as both nouns
and verbs, there seems to be little risk in using {bav} as a noun = "a/the
orbit". I.e. do we treat what Okrand quotes as the whole of (mostly the
spaceman's variety of) Klingon? Or do we treat it as that subset of Klingon
that he has needed so far in composing text for Star Trek etc? If the latter,
then can we do what people writing in Tolkien's languages seen to do
routinely, namely a sensible controlled amount of analogical extension to try
to reconstruct some of the matter which is so far missing?

(2) If that is accepted, my criticized extension **{qachbav vIyIt} = "I walk
around the building" seems little different from *{qach bav vIyIt} = "I walk an
orbit of the building". This is much shorter than the above suggested "I walk
on a route which resembles a circle outside the building".

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