tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jun 25 02:32:21 2005

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Re: Correct/canon usage of numbers

Lady K'Lyssia ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

> jIja'pu':
> >If both usages are found in canon, both usages are probably correct.
> >Nevertheless, Okrand's forms tend to be those that use suffixes, and it
> >would seem that common usage on the list prefers to use them as suffixes
> >(hence {wa'maH}) and not full words (which would be {wa' maH}); in the
> >general case, at least. There is some canon that explicitly uses them as
> >full words, though, which I'll cite a bit later.
>
> jang Voragh:
> >If Okrand has been inconsistent in this, so have other languages.  E.g.
> >English "twenty one" vs. "twenty-one" vs. (rarely) "twentyone" or Spanish
> >"veinte y uno" vs. "veintiuno".
>
> And to a certain extent, that's what we should expect from Klingon, too. I
> like the fact that there are a lot of things we can do in a few different
> ways: it means that it's possible to develop your own personal "style" of
> Klingon.
>

Actually is it so much style as it is the difference between grammatically 
proper syntax, commonly spoken syntax, lazy syntax?

I tend to believe the later as that shows the language as living and 
evolving just as the living languages of Earth are, because it is being 
used.

Of course these difference are more common to spoken language but do show up 
in written language as well. (While it is sometimes done deliberately as a 
matter of style, it is more commonly due to the writer's laziness or only a 
passing acquaintance with the proper rules of grammar.)


Carol (Lady K'Lyssia) Hightshoe
www.klyssia.com
www.wolfsingerpubs.com
http://klyssia.blogspot.com/
Don't Write What You Know; Write What You Care About -- Passionately!

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