tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 29 11:45:31 2002

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Re: lexicographical issue...

Hi people,


thanks for the reactions... Hopefully I get even more... 

Anyway, Right after I had sent the message I realised that 
<<Hargh HIvje'>> was indeed not "teapot" but "teacup", but hey, 
errare humanem est...


> What is currently lacking in any uniform, distributable form, is a  
> Klingon equivalent of the OED showing canon usage of all the 
> Klingon words and affixes and grammatical constructions. 
> Okrand has repeatedly told us that like a natural language, the 
>"rules" of the language are derived from observing usage, so the 
> best way to know the details of the language is to study the 
> usage more than take the given rules too seriously.


To investigate what was lacking in the TKD, and what could, 
theoretically, be compiled out of all the (scattered) canon material, 
was indeed the focus of my paper, even though I'm mainly 
focusing on problems concerning lay-out, typological issues, 
whether to use nesting or not, whether to give examples, and 
idiomatic use, and proverbs in an entry, and things of the like. I 
will have to give examples in my paper, though, and I think I will 
drop some questions on the list every once in a while...

I think that in order to take the making or revising of a dictionary 
seriously, one should also try to take the rules that have been 
given seriously. There is always room for exceptions in a 
dictionary of course, since it will fit into the dictionary anyway. 
I'm convinced that making a revised dictionary too voluminous is 
not really a problem for Klingon, since (just being realistic) 
tlhIngan Hol will never acquire as many words as the English 
language has.    


As I had said, my problem concerns nesting here. If I would 
choose for nesting in a Revised Klingon Dictionary (or let's call it 
OKD for fun, to make the parallel with OED) (for those who 
don't know; nesting = to use more than one entry in the paragraph 
of a dictionary), then what kind of compound nouns should, or 
could, I put under one entry (that is, if I would want to use 
nesting). And what about derivatives? Of course, due to the 
extensive use, one should give <<SuvwI'>> as a separate entry, 
and not as a derivate entry under <<Suv>>, but should I give 
<<SuyDuj>> "merchant ship" a separate entry, or should I nest 
this compound noun under <<Suy>> "merchant". That is really the 
problem that is bothering me. The thing I'm looking for is a 
consistent system that would be suitable for the average 
dictionary user...


qeyS.

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