tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri May 10 06:19:43 1996

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Re: Cannon for Multiple Consonants

# Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 11:21:23 -0700
# From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>


Subject: Re: Cannon for Multiple Consonants - the final frontier...


>> -y' and -w' are also consonant clusters.

jIjIvvIS vIghItlhHa':
> Are not. TKD lists y and w as vowels as far as I can recall.

>Give me one example where -y' or -w' would appear
>after a consonant. If you can't then they appear 
>only after a vowel, thus they are vowels. If w in
>-w' is a vowel then -w' can't be consonant cluster.

# Wait, so things that can only occur after vowels must
# be vowels? Does that make "ng" a vowel in English?

OK, that doesn't seem make much sense, I can't recall now
what I was thinking then.  I wrote that under impression 
that Klingon w and y may me either vowels or consonants 
depending on their position.  I was proved to be incorrect 
with excellent demontrations from several people. 
I finally got TKD in my hands and read the whole "sounds of 
Klingon" section myself. Indeed, you all may now ridicule 
and crucify me. 

qatlh potlh *consonant clusters*'e'?

# I remember once before someone (maybe you) was proposing 
# that instead of saying Klingon syllables are CV[C] ot CVG' 
# or CVrgh, that we consider "VG" (G=glide, and modified by 
# restrictions already mentioned) to be a diphthong and then 
# it's just CV[C] where V can be a vowel or diphthong...
# and then you have to restrict the final C to be ' after 
# diphthongs, and stuff with -rgh... Maybe not as neat as I 
# thought it would be.

Dajatlhmo' jIbel.  Reminded us not to take everything for 
granted, at least not in linguistics.  There are always 
other ways to look at things as your vooble-kronstint 
example made obvious. 

tIq vIngIpmo' jIQoSbej, but I refuse to feel guilty for 
that since some toDSaHpu' send on 100 lines, sometimes 
even more, and add a one-line comment in the end. 

# Dare I say that many linguistics texts refer to w and y as semivowels? :)

Hol wuv. tlhIngan Hol malo'DI' lughbejbe'.

>Well, are diphthongs phonemes or not?
Ooops! I've been working under lot of pressure recently... 
I seem to forget words in the rush... I meant to say:
"are dipthongs distinct phonemes *in Klingon*", anyway I 
got my answer: no.  That's it.  Thank you.  Iu/Iw is 
pronounced like an English diphthong but it is not a 
diphthong.  Typical anglo logic.  No further questions 
about diphthongs. 

# I think a lot of this is word-games.  From what we've 
# seen in Klingon, the facts are these: 

jIHmo' poHlIj DawoD vaj jItlhIjneS.

# 1) All syllables begin with a single Kronstint (with the 
# exception of the suffix -oy), where Kronstints are b,ch,
# D,gh,H,j,l,m,ng,p,q,Q,r,S,t,tlh, v,w,y,'. 
#
# 2) all syllables have exactly one vooble, where voobles 
# are defined as a,e,I,o,u, which follows the Kronstint. 
[snip]
# So I'm not all that concerned with what you call things.
# Call them voobles and Kronstints for all I care.

Actually using other terms was a good idea. Nothing that 
we've learnt from other languages doesn't subconsciously 
mislead us. I'm still using your flutzpah occasionally...
Maybe I ought to use those terms in my own grammar files.

# ~mark

========

*sigh*  So all this consonant cluster stuff was all
metamorphobioanglophonic technical stuff concerning
orthoparadoxical word/syllable formation and had nothing 
to do with phonetics.  The last time I studied TKD I was 
reading about pronunciation and phonetics and I had 
this particular paragraph on my mind (TKD p.17):

"Klingon uy resembles ooey in English gooey(1). Klingon ew 
resembles nothing in English, but can be approximated by 
running Klingon e and u together. Likewise, Klingon Iw is I 
and u run together. No words in Klingon have ow or uw. If 
they did, they would be indistinguishable from words ending 
in o and u, respectively."

(1) none of my dictionaries knows "gooey" so for me it's 
a useless example of pronunciation.

First TKD says Iw is I and u run together, then I'm told 
the latter sound is a consonant. I felt rather confused 
to hear that the u-sound is a consonant. I assumed that 
"I and u run together" meant diphthong, and Okrand just
wanted to avoid a difficult grammatical term.
I find it rather odd that TKD is praised for being made
"easy to understand" by omitting precise terms. I find
TKD inaccurate, confusing and sometimes even inconsistent.
OK, I know it's best Klingon study book (...simply because 
there's nothing else/worse available).

Next time it *seems* that u-sound is said to be a consonant
or something I'll just trash the message, think no more 
about it and sleep well.

========
# Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 15:13:26 -0700
# From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
# Subject: Re: Cannon for Multiple Consonants

According to Sa' qIQwI':
> Give me one example where -y' or -w' would appear
> after a consonant. If you can't then they appear 
> only after a vowel, thus they are vowels.

# WHAT? Listen to yourself. You have characters which 
# appear only after a vowel, right? So, except for the 
# characters in question, what are the only kinds of 
# characters in Klingon which can follow vowels?

OK, OK... what I replied to ~mark, goes with you as and
for everybody else, I won't repeat what I just wrote.

> example: Qaw'   Q  aw  '
>                 c  v   c
#
# Nope. That's:   c  vc  c

>From the quoted paragraph (earlier in the message) I got 
the impression that this equals [Qau'], but as it has 
become evident, the English "pronunciation guide" was 
misleading me again. Qau' would have been a cvvc case, 
would it not have? In English au/aw would have been a 
diphthong, would it not? 

# Buy a clue. {rgh}, {w'} and {y'} are consonant clusters.

...which means rgh is simply r followed by gh.

Thank you, that was important for me to know. Next time
somebody disagrees with me on rgh I can say: but charghwI'
said...

# qa
#  That is an open syllable.
# qaw
#  That is a normal cvc syllable.
# qaw'
#  That is a syllable ending in a consonant cluster.

The same in Finnish... Klingon phonology is very Finnish-
like... or esperanto - I mean most of it is familiar from
those mentioned. It's a pity TKD is not available in 
esperanto, I might understand better.

> Well, are diphthongs phonemes or not?
# In Klingon, dipthongs do not exist, so your question
# is not appropriate to this langauge.

I'm delighted to see some straightforwardness on the list
(I've been missing it). A plain direct answer. jIbel.

# charghwI'

========
# Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 18:16:19 -0500
# From: Mark Mandel <[email protected]>
# Subject:  Consonant Clusters

[snip]

# The second thing you should reread is the message from marqoS,
# sent May 1, that you are disagreeing with so bluntly.

# I tracked it down (you didn't identify even the writer)

No, because
1. when I press the reply button, I can't see the header 
   lines of the original message. I could have gone back 
   to dig it out, but I didn't think it was relevant, because
2. many people wrote the same thing, I just happened to 
   pick marqoS's message. I didn't mean to reply marqoS in
   particular, but rather comment on the matter being discussed.
   
Sorry, marqoS if you felt personally offended. You may 
hammer the first nail when I'm crucified.

# Them apostrophes is sneaky little things. They'll slip 
# right past ya if ya ain't real careful.

Well, I've solved that.

[snip]

========
# Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 14:16:36 -0700
# From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
# Subject: Re: Consonant Clusters

charghwI' to Mark Mandel:
# While it is not stated in TKD, in HolQeD Volume 1, Number 1
# there is an excellent explanation of Klingon phenominology...
# phenomi...phenomonomonomonomonolology... Whatever.

In HolQeD not in TKD?  Is that information available only 
if you pay for it?

# Anyway, all canon examples still fit this description of 
# combinations of sounds. There are no exceptions.

I've heard this "canon" being mentioned quite frequently, 
but what is canon?  How can I know?  Is there a reference 
list of canonical works available somewhere, on KLI ftp for 
example?  Is all canon available somewhere for anybody or
is it members-only stuff?
Or is it all copyrighted merchandise like computer programs?
Can I use non-TKD words if I haven't paid for the licence?

Sa' qIQwI'

Sami Laitala (mr)  [email protected] http://www.sci.fi/~pob41/
                   suomi|cymraeg|esperanto|english
S'on moro/cyfarchion/saluton/Qapla'/regards
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