tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 14 10:09:21 1996

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Re: <K'>vaD ghItlhlu''a'?

On Thu, 14 Nov 1996 06:36:37 -0800 "Mark E. Shoulson" 
<[email protected]> wrote:

I really like your voobles and Kronstints. It makes a good 
point. Meanwhile, I'd like to point out the one and only 
exception to your rules that I've found in an Okrandian 
canonical source:

janluq pIqarD HoD -- as noted in: HolQeD v5n3p15
           ^^

Needless to say, this is an odd case of transliterating a Fed 
Standard proper name, but it is the one case in which Okrand 
made this exception. I mean he even used {'entepray'} to avoid 
an alien kronstint cluster at the end of a syllable, yet 
John-Luc gets special treatment.

charghwI'

> I think a lot of this is word-games.  From what we've seen in Klingon, the
> facts are these:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 3) A syllable may end with:
> 
>   a) nothing after the vooble
> 
>   b) a single Kronstint after the vooble (provided that if the vooble is u
>      or o, the closing Kronstint can't be w)
> 
>   c) the structure "-rgh" (call it a cluster, a phoneme, whatever) after
>      the vooble
> 
>   d) structures "-y'" or "-w'" after the vooble (provided that if the
>      vooble is u or o, the structure can't be -w')
> 
> Now, that's what we know about the syllable structure.  Note that much of
> it isn't spelled out, but only known from inspection of the lexicon.  Lest
> you think that's taking too many liberties, I point out that it is only
> through inspection of the lexicon that we come to the conclusion that
> initial consonant cluster are fobidden, and I think most of us will agree
> to that, given the lengths to which Okrand has gone to avoid them.  So if
> you will say that the above is not complete because it was never explcitly
> explicitly stated to be so, you must also permit words like "*jqIm" and
> "*mmapq".
> 
> Given the above, it sounds like a lot of the fighting is over what to call
> things.  You could come up with a set of rules that produced exactly the
> same set of syllables by dividing things up differently, saying instead
> that after the consonant (which I called a Kronstint above to use made-up
> words that I could define as I wanted), there must come a vowel or a
> diphthong, with appropriate definitions and then restrictions on the end
> (only ' may follow a diphthong, rgh has its own exception, etc).  And
> that's as valid a description as this.  Because that's all these are:
> DESCRIPTIONS.  Emphasis on the DE-.  They are not PRESCRIPTIONS.  Do we
> know for *sure* that you can't have another consonant after -ay aside 
> from '?  No more than we know you can't have initial clusters.  All this is
> presumed from what we have and lack evidence for.
> 
> So I'm not all that concerned with what you call things.  Call them voobles
> and Kronstints for all I care.
> 
> ~mark

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