tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 13 17:19:45 1997
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: SopDaq
- From: "Eric Zay" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: SopDaq
- Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 19:37:32 -0400
> The key phrase here seems to indicate the these "confusing words"
> are from "Old Klingon" combinations. We should be able to take
> known words that make sense as "good" examples and if they don't
> we can wait around for Dr. Okrand to give us the single "word"
> and it's meaning to bring it all together.
>
> Go with the positive not the negative and learn from words like
> lupDuj (shuttlecraft - transport ship), vutpa' (galley - cooking
> room), QongDaq (bed - sleeping place), HIvDuj (attach fighter),
> etc. These words are a small sampling of the many "two-syllable"
> words that make sense to their "single syllable" components, but
> because there isn't a "noun" entry for in TKD many of the "learned
> Klingonists" within the KLI make "petty" arguments (and the
> mailing list is full of them). They choose to ignore them and say
> that if they don't make sense they should be left alone, wait for
> Okrand to rule on it. Such an attitude doesn't grow the language
> but stifle it.
Unfortunately with the above examples, we have no way of knowing whether
they are examples of noun-noun constructs, of a yet unknown rule about
noun-verb constructs, or simply flukes left over from an earlier era when
Klingon grammar was different. We just don't know. Accentuating the
positives is all very well and good, but we would not serve the language
well by ignoring the basics of good research. It is not our purview to
invent rules of grammar. The way to keep from stifling the language is to
find inventive ways, within the rules, to say what you mean.
SuSvaj