tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 01 12:28:13 2004

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Re: chuv

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>

> On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, David Trimboli wrote:
> > I wouldn't say that.  {chuvmey} has its own entry in TKD; {chuv} (n) is
> > nowhere in sight.  If {chuv} (n) were a normal, lexicalized word, why
> > wouldn't it have had its own entry, instead of {chuvmey}?
[...]
> As a counterpoint, IIRC, we have "chenmoH" in the dictionary specifically
> as well, but I've been told that if I wanted to say "he needs to create" I
> would NOT say */chenmoHnIS/.
>
> Now, admittedly, /chen/ does already exist in the dictionary as a verb,
> whereas /chuv/ does not exist as a noun...

Okrand has stated that most words+suffix in the dictionary are there to make
English look-up easier.  If you're looking for the word "make" in English,
to find out how to say it in Klingon, you're not going to think to look up
"take form" or "cause to take form."  You're going to be looking in the
"m"s.  Thus, he put some common English words, which have word+suffix
Klingon translations, into the dictionary.  And since they were in the
English-Klingon side, they were also put in the Klingon-English side.

Not only does {chuv} not exist as a noun in the dictionary, but the English
lookup, "leftover(s)" doesn't change its location in the lookup.

> But the corrolary would be, what if I wanted to use /chuvmey/ with a Type
> 1 noun suffix?  Would it be */chuvmey'a'/ or */chuv'a'mey/ ?  This is
> where this kind of oddity becomes problematic.

Yup.  I nominate you to tell a Klingon you don't like it.  :)

> Another point to consider is that there are definitely words that have
> appeared on one side of the translation but not the other -- and at least
> once case where the translations actually differ for the same word.

True.  Most of these are obviously typographical errors -- they occur most
often at the end of the English-Klingon side, where the typist or Okrand was
obviously running out of steam, skipping lines accidentally and forgetting
terms that had already been established.

> Are there any other words in the dictionary that appear ONLY with what
> appears to be a suffix?  I saw that other great post with an accumulation
> of all the words that have suffixes specifically in the dictionary, but I
> don't remember it saying which ones did not have a lone stem also into the
> dictionary...

Well, there's {QongDaq}, but it's not a locative word: it's quite definitely
lexicalized as a normal noun.  {QongDaqDaq} is a legal word+suffix
{QongDaqDaq Qotbe' tlhInganpu'}.

I can't think of any others.

SuStel
Stardate 4166.5

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