tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 17 16:04:19 2007

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Re: jIHtaHbogh naDev vISovbe'

QeS 'utlh ([email protected]) 

jIghItlhpu', jIja':
>{qep'a' wejDIch} might be a specific {qep'a'} and might be a
>name,

mujang SuStel, ja':
>I KNOW it's a name.

'e' vISov je jIH. When I said it "might be a name", I mean it in the
same sense as I mean "might" in "Sydney might be a large city, but
it's small compared to New York". I concede that Sydney in fact is
large, but make a further point to qualify the fact. My point was just
that the fact that {qep'a' wejDIch} is a name doesn't necessarily let
it opt out of Klingon grammar.

jIghItlhpu', ja':
>I used to think that the ordinals were true adjectives (which Klingon
>mostly lacks).

mujang SuStel, ja':
>Ordinals are numbers (chuvmey) with a special suffix on them.

"Is the suffix derivational?" is the only question I have about that.
After all, {-ghach} and {-wI'} on verbs turn them into nouns (and
I'm sure you wouldn't argue that {'orwI'} "pilot", for instance, would
ever be allowed as the verb of a sentence simply because it's a verb
with a special suffix on it). I'm not sure that within the grammar of the
numbers, {-DIch} can't be treated as a derivational suffix that turns
numbers into nouns, so that the ordinals aren't just "acting as" nouns,
but actually *are* nouns. If they don't ever act as anything else,
what's the point of treating them as a separate word class?

>But that's not to say that ordinals follow the rules of Klingon
>adjectives. Klingon doesn't HAVE adjectives;

I did say that Klingon "mostly lacks" adjectives above, and the only
exception I'd be willing to consider is, in fact, the set of ordinal
numbers (which, if they are in fact behaving adjectivally in {qep'a'
wejDIchDaq}, probably must be true adjectives, because there's no
canon evidence that they're able to act as quality verbs). And I do
agree with you; whatever the ordinals are - nouns or whatever else -
they're probably not adjectives (although when Okrand said "there are
no adjectives as such in Klingon" (TKD p.49) I don't know that the
ordinal numbers would have crossed his mind).

QeS 'utlh
tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pab po'wI'
(Grammarian of the Klingon Language Institute)


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

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