tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 01 18:27:16 1996
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Re: KLBC: jIyajbe'
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>Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 18:03:11 -0700
>From: [email protected]
>At 04:07 AM 30/8/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>What about <ghach>? I have seen some confusion on when and how this
>>can/should be used. According to my TKD, it would appear that it can only
>>be used when the verb has a suffix. ie: <naDHa'ghach> for
>>"discommendation".
>You are mistaken here, {-ghach} can be used on noun without suffixes too.
>TKD page 176 4.2.9. "...as nouns, but it is know that verbs ending in
>suffixes (...) can never be nouns. The Type 9 suffix {-ghach}, however, can
>be added to such verbs in order to form nouns." This piece of text doesn't
>have the words "...can only be added to..." in it, thusly my interpretation
>has always been that if a verb had no noun counterpart, that was known, one
>could, only as distinguished noun, highlight it with the Type 9 suffix {-ghach}.
This probably predates your starting with Klingon, so I'll try to sketch it
quickly and hope we can drop this as quickly as we can. :)
This very argument (of whether or not -ghach can go on any verb) was the
subject of one of the most heated arguments in Klingon study, with Glen
Proechel contending that it couldn't and several other KLI members (Glen
was with the KLI at the time I believe) unsure or believing the contrary.
Glen based his position on the word "such" in the passage you quoted above:
"[-ghach] can be added to *such* verbs" ... and not others.
A GREAT deal of discussion passed over this very topic, much with more heat
than light. Glen wrote an article in HolQeD, in which he stated his
position and said that in order to nominalize a suffixless verb, you
couldn't use -ghach, unless you tacked on a suffix like -taH or used the
bare verb-stem (which I, at least, don't buy).
Anyway. Finally Marc Okrand came down and decided, in a HolQeD article
(anyone with a reference?) that indeed you *shouldn't* (not quite "can't")
put -ghach on a suffixless verb, that such usage is considered highly
marked or poetic.
OK, now you're up to speed on history.
~mark
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