Re: qepHom, qep, qep'a'

[Qov <qov@direct.ca>]

lab SuStel:

 > Well, just my thoughts about it (it's not an article, nor a study:
 > (a) /HISlaH/ is harder to say than /HIja'/. That's not just me; to 
change from /S/ > to /l/ between syllables is a large change in 
articulation point.

I mentioned one year at qep'a' and there was some agreement, that I find I 
use HISlaH as a more emphatic yes.  And it's almost certainly because I 
have to slow down a bit to say it.

Many other usage patterns stem from the fact that all conversations contain 
at least one person who doesn't know all the vocabulary.  So when I say 
ghotpu' bIj oSwI' ror and get blank looks I try again with nuvpu' Hup Duy 
pI', and then in the next conversation I stick with the words that worked 
the first time.  So when the aim of a conversation is communication, the 
most widely understood words are used, and become self-reinforcing as the 
most widely understood words.  The barely tipped balance becoming a 
landslide is exactly the right description.  If I talk to someone at 
breakfast, when I see them again at lunch I'll try to use the same 
vocabulary I forced them to look up at breakfast, and the people listening 
to us will look up that vocabulary and then use it themselves, and so on.

Sometimes, however, the speaker is a newbie who has not been indoctrinated 
into the KLI community yet, and thus uses fresh vocabulary. And THAT is how 
we learn.  As BG I had to look up more words submitted in hesitant 
beginners' OVS sentences than I did in reading day to day fluent 
conversation.  A beginner is more likely to come up with lInDab tum than an 
advanced speaker, who would probably say something like ghoqwI' ghom or 
ghoqmeH DIvI'.  As BG I also tried to assign sentences with some 
ridiculously obscure vocabulary.  The beginners have to look up every word 
anyway, and they'll look up ghaj and QaQ on their own, so I make them look 
up qor and lIq.  Take Lawrence's obsession with HoSDo'.  Anyone who's been 
to a qep'a' in the last five years knows that word.  I'll bet some of them 
don't know yoq, or even ghot.

Maybe we should have a levelling game sometime where we progressively ban 
words and affixes from the vocabulary and try and work around their lack to 
describe flashcards.  Beginners get to use the whole vocabulary, but other 
speakers can't use words beginning in a randomly chosen letter.  For the 
more advanced, every time you screw up, you lose another letter, until 
you've got one letter left and are grunting in clipped Klingon.  That could 
be funny, giving the beginners a chance to talk rings around the BGs for once.

<picture of a ship>
Duj Dalegh'a'?
'ejDo' 'ang 'otlhmeywIj
tepqengwI' tu'bej
So'be' SuyDuj
Qoj QI' QuQmey

Okay, I'm rambling now.