tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 13 15:54:16 2002
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Re: 'e' Xlu' vs net X
- From: Andrew Strader <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: 'e' Xlu' vs net X
- Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 20:52:29 +0000
- Organization: Decode
qon SuStel:
>I can certainly agree that there are times when a language will have more
>than one tool to do something, but in this case declaring /'e' X-lu'/ to be
>identical to /net X/ would seem to make the whole word /net/ absolutely
>pointless. I can also agree that languages can have tools whose functions
>have been taken over by other tools. Do you believe that is what has
>happened with /net/?
Well, if we consider that tlhIngan Hol is evolving and changing as any
natural language would, certain parts of the grammar may become sort of
unstable from time to time. Maybe that is happening right now with "'e' Xlu'"
versus "net X". How tlhIngan Hol would have gotten to the point of having
both "'e' Xlu'" and "net X" expressing roughly the same thing, I don't know.
But I would be surprised if the language didn't eventually evolve beyond
that. Maybe one of the forms would fall out of use and retain an archaic
connotation, as with Sangqar's example of "DIS ret" versus "ben". Or maybe
both forms would remain in use but diverge in meaning, even if only subtly.
As taD demonstrates with his own hard-earned Klingon Sprachgefuehl, it seems
more likely for a semantic divergence to occur between "'e' Xlu'" and "net
X". All in all, I'm pretty sure "net" is here to stay, but I'm not so sure it
would be tolerated by Klingons if it meant exactly the same thing as "'e'
Xlu'".
--
Andrew Strader