tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 20 12:30:51 2002
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Re: Why do type 6s come before type 7s?
> > the tkd terminology says "you can't say this, because you can't." or
>> "you can't say this because 7 is greater than 6." that's no
>> explanation. i would like to have an explanation that explains
>> instead of saying "correct" and "incorrect". i want to understand the
>> grammar, not just immitate it.
>
>Here is an example in English, my native language, that closely
>parallels the Klingon rules for suffix ordering. Modify the noun
>"shoes" with the following words:
>
>two blue my ballet little favourite
>
>Most English speakers will produce:
>
>my two favourite little blue ballet shoes
>
>Now, why did you put the words in that order?
a tkd-explanation would be that "my" is a type-a word, "two" is a
type-b word and so on.
>What's wrong with "favourite ballet two my blue little shoes"?
a tkd-explanation would be: the words must be in the order "abcdefg".
>Most native English speakers don't even know. It just sounds
>stupid. People who have learned English as a second language know
>some rules, where modifiers are grouped into different classes,
>possessive, number, type, colour, and some adjectives have separate
>rules. Doesn't that sound like Klingon?
yes. (btw, i don't like the english (and german) grammar terms very much, too.)
>I suspect that Klingon native speakers would be astonished if you
>told them that they had nine types of verb suffix and that there was
>a specific order. The Klingons just put -chu' after -moH because it
>"sounds stupid" the other way.
i don't want to explain klingon grammar to a klingon...
>Does that help? The rules and number are a way to describe
>correctly spoken Klingon, not a recipe that native Klingon speakers
>follow.
the scope of tkd is to describe correctly spoken klingon. and i want
to have descriptions of correctly spoken english. the fact is, that i
don't like these descriptions. you do, ok. it's good that we
compared. :)
bye,
tulwI',
sts.