tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 09 08:17:43 1995

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Re: Gaps in known Klingon grammar?

Marc Okrand created the Klingon language. We enjoy it. Perhaps
we should respect his contribution enough to avoid suggesting
to him that he can now leave it up to us to "finish" it for him.

I tend to think it is a little more respectful to approach the
problems we continue to have with the language by instead, at
an acceptable pace, point out where we have problems with the
language and ask Okrand how he thinks those problems can best
be handled within the available tools of his language, or
perhaps he might decide to create a few more tools, and might
enlist our help.

For example, he might respond to our concern about transitivity
by asking us to divide all the existing verbs between
transitive, intransitive or both. He might also say that we
were approaching the problem the wrong way and the verbs should
not be classified this way at all. Either way, it is his choice.

According to A.Appleyard:
> 
> ... As Marc Okrand likely has other things to do than to carry the sole
> labour of updating Klingon, is there a chance of us on tlhIngan-Hol getting
> together to produce a `choHmey qechmey ghItlh` = "List of Ideas for
> Alterations" that we could forward to him? This would include such patches to
> fill gaps as:-
> (1) A way to produce the simple infinitive of any verb.

I doubt Okrand considers this to be a gap. I'm relatively
certain that this particular omission was intentional as part
of the essential personality of the language.

> (2) In `X Z law' Y Z puS` (X & Y are nouns, Z is (verb used as) adjective), =
> "X is Z'er than Y", permission to omit or shorten the second occurence of a
> long phrase used as Z.

Again, I'm relatively certain that he designed this
construction with his eyes wide open. I've heard that this
particular construction is copied from at least one Native
American language. He was probably intrigued by the degree to
which a language had historically managed quite well with only
this as its tool for comparatives and superlatives and liked
the simplicity. A few extra syllables probably don't bother him
all that much, or he would have done this differently.

> (3) Ability e.g. to use `tlhej` = "accompany" as an adverb "together" or a
> noun suffix "together with", by analogy of some other words that are also
> used as suffixes. (E.g. once when I was writing a bit of Klingon, I needed a
> word for "around" and found none, so I had no remedy except to venture to bend
> the rules and use the noun for "orbit" as a noun suffix = "around".)

I think it would be better to ask him how best to handle these
problems rather than suggest to him how we could expand the use
of {tlhej} or "orbit". You can also ask this list how we handle
these problems.

The word "around" is used several different ways in English and
each use probably has a different solution in Klingon. {Hur} or
{retlh} will work in many instances. The verb {Dech} can be
helpful. In any instance, arbitrarily deciding to make up a new
noun suffix is not acceptable.

> It will likely take us and Marc Okrand a long time to get the Klingon language
> complete: e.g. after 50 years Tolkien was still altering bits of his Elvish
> `Quenya` language and its supposed history.

Yes, but Tolkien did it himself without a committee telling him
what additions he needed to make. I feel insubordinate enough
just pressing to get Okrand to answer questions instead of
simply getting better at using the tools the language already
provides.

charghwI'
-- 

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  ">   | Get a grip.
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