tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 12 12:26:35 2010

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RE: Hypothetical (reconstructed) vocabulary?

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) 

Voragh:
>>> Over the weekend I began compiling a list of hypothetical
>>> (reconstructed) vocabulary, chiefly from compound nouns.
Michael Everson:
>> Not that I am in a position to propose anything, but I've always though
>> that "lIl" would be an excellent word for "difficult to discern; illegible".

majha'!  vIparha'qu'!!

Alex Greene:
>I was using 'arlogh for "how many times?" unofficially until it appeared
>in KGT.  Other apocrypha I was thinking of, mostly adverbials, are:-
>
>  *loQHa' greatly, a lot

We already have the adverbial {tlhoy} "overly, to an excessive degree, excessively, too much" and the verb {'Iq} "be too many, be too much", both introduced by Okrand in HQ 8.3: 

>  *pay'Ha' gradually
>  *pe'vIlHa' gently, softly, lightly, weakly
>  *pIjHa' infrequently, not often

{pIjHa'} seldom, infrequently (listed in KGT)

>  *SIbI'Ha' after a delay

>This is based on the apparent pattern of nItebHa' "together" and Do'Ha'
>"unfortunately" and ... 

HQ 4.4:  Whether this {-Ha'} can be added to all adverbials is not clear. The notes taken while working with Maltz indicate that he balked at {vajHa'} ("not thus?") but accepted {Do'Ha'} "unfortunately". Information on other adverbials has not yet been uncovered, though it is probably in the notes somewhere.

Good suggestions all, but they're not quite what I was after.

> I only list them because this topic is about hypotheticals.

Actually, it's about hypotheticals, reconstructed from otherwise unattested morphemes (chiefly nouns or verbs) in existing compound nouns.  See my original short list for the sort of thing I'm talking about.  

For example, something that came up in another thread is {'evnagh} "subspace" which appears to be formed from *{'ev} + *[nagh}.  Since it's unlikely these are {'ev} "area northwestward" and {nagh} "rock, stone", this may be evidence of two new roots, or it's a two-syllable word possibly borrowed into tlhIngan Hol from another language (Hur'q perhaps?).  Note that {'evnagh} doesn't include the morpheme {logh} "(outer) space" which you would have expected if Okrand had simply translated the English word "subspace" literally.
 
Can anyone think of any other examples?


-- 
Voragh                          
Canon Master of the Klingons

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