tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 08 09:24:30 1995
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Re: Re[4]: ranks and titles (was Suppletion)
>Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 06:54:24 -0800
>From: [email protected]
>On Tue, 7 Nov 1995 ~mark wrote:
>>I'm sorry about the homophony of "ta'be'" and "not accomplish"... but then,
>>I don't hear you complaining about using "ta'" for "King" because it sounds
>>like it means "accomplish." It's simply the way the language works out.
>>Homophony happens.
>Well that's what a King does. You could consider a sovereign the person who
>actually gets things done. So I don't have a problem with it.
I don't think I buy that. There's really no evidence that there's any
connection between the homophony and the meaning. Is the number 2 (cha')
something which displays (cha') things? Does twilight (choS) desert
(choS)? Do caves (DIS) and years (DIS) confess (DIS)? Are things (Doch)
rude (Doch)? Or backs (Dub) improve (Dub)? And that's just through the
D's. We have plenty of evidence that homophones in Klingon need not have
anything to do with their meanings. It looks like what you're objecting to
is not that "ta'" means "emperor" and "accomplish," but that "be'" means
"female" and "not." Does that mean women are contrary? I doubt it. It
just means they happen to have the same syllable, which leads to
unfortunate homophony. But just as "ta'" means "accomplish" and also
"emperor" and the two have nothing to do with one another, "ta'be'" means
"not accomplish" and also "emperor-woman", and that's just the way it
turns out. The homophony may be unfortunate, but it's the way it is.
>>It's not really our fault. "ta'be'" is constructed
>>along the lines of "puqbe'" (which is NOT *be'puq),
>Are there any other cannon examples besides son & daughter where the sex comes
>second?
Are there any examples of *noun* compounds at all where the sex comes
first? I should think a canon example would suffice in the absence of
anything better.
>>and also is reminiscient of "ta' be'[nal]" (though it doesn't necessarily mean
>>just that). This is probably significant, since in my mind "be'ta'" means, if
>>anything, a reigning queen, i.e. a queen who is the sovereign ruler in her
>>own right (e.g. Queen Elizabeth), and not a queen who is queen because she
>>happens to be married to the king. Gertrude is definitely in the latter
>>category: Claudius is the King, and she is his Royal Consort.
>That sort of makes sense. Working from an English bias though, "queen" by
>itself does not designate rule. "King" always does, that's why he's Prince
>Philip. So sticking with that bias I'd use <be'ta'> all the time.
But as you said, that's an English bias. The Klingon ordering seems to
imply a different meaning to my instincts, and apparently also to yours.
In that case, having been attested by the instincts of both of us, it would
be reasonable to conclude that Klingon is likely a language (and by no
means the only one) which *would* have different words for "queen regnant"
and "royal consort."
>>You may have quoted them already, but I can't bring them to mind. Can you
>>cite the other cannon examples of "be'" going before the other noun in
>>compounds?
>be'Hom = girl loDHom = boy
>be'nal = wife loDnal = husband
>be'nI' = sister loDnI' = brother
>Okay, I'll admit they're shaky. <female/male bone> <female/male ?> and
><female/male be lengthy> probably aren't compound words. But they are
>consistent.
I asked for noun compounds. "be'Hom" is clearly "be'" plus the *suffix*
-Hom for "little", and the other two are unknown constructions. "nI'" is a
verb, so either this is a noun-verb compound (about which little is known;
they are not given as normal productive forms) or else it's something else
we don't know about, and in neither case can you really draw any
conclusion. "be'nal" is about the same, only without the option of NV
compounding (unless "nal" is a verb we don't know about.) It's an unknown
and there's really no obvious conclusion that can be drawn, since it could
be a fossilized form or anything.
Of course, it's also possible that "puqbe'" is a fossilized form from a
time when the ordering was different, but in the absence of ANY clear
examples to the contrary, it's all we have to go on.
>I guess my basic problem comes with the translation side. <Emperor female> just
>sounds so weird. If you were using <ta' be'>, <Emperor's female> to indicate a
>nonruling consort, I'd have no problem.
I'll see what the other Hamlet translators think. I've already said in
regard to other discussions that I tend to find the line between compound
nouns and N-N constructions kind of fuzzy.
~mark