tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 27 02:10:33 2011

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[Tlhingan-hol] -qH- vs. -Q-

Philip Newton ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol ghojwI']

As I was practising flashcards, I came across {voqHa'} "distrust", and
I noticed that I pronounced it almost like *{voQa'}.

That made me wonder (a) whether the sequences -qH- and -Q- are
pronounced differently, and (b) whether there are any cases where a
word could be confused by swapping -qH- for -Q- or vice versa.

For (a), I suppose the answer is "yes, there is a difference";
according to http://klingonska.org/piqad/, {q} is pronounced [q], {H}
is pronounced [x], and {Q} is pronounced [q_X] (in X-SAMPA; in IPA:
[q͡χ]). So -qH- would be a uvular stop followed by a _velar_
fricative, while -Q- is a uvular affricate (uvular stop with _uvular_
fricative release). The place of articulation of the fricative portion
should make the distinction.

And even for those who, like me, tend to have {H} (and {gh}) fairly
far back, roughly uvular, I think one could still make a distinction
between a sequence of plosive + fricative on the one hand, and
affricate on the other hand. (Though for such a distinction to be
phonemic, i.e. to be able to cause a difference in meaning, is rare,
to my knowledge. A notable counterexample is Polish, which
distinguishes, for example, between _czy_ [t_s`1 = t͡ʂɨ] "whether",
with affricate, and _trzy_ [ts`1 = tʂɨ] "three", with stop+fricative.
Ask 'ISqu' to pronounce the pair for you when you meet her.)

Essentially, I think the difference would be whether the stop has a
"normal" release or flows straight into the fricative for its release.

Anyway, I had a look at (b). The obvious place where {-qH-} and {-Q-}
could contrast would be for the case of word in -q followed by suffix
in H- on the one hand, and verb prefix followed by verb in Q- on the
other hand.

Since Klingon tends to like closed CVC syllables, syllables ending in
vowels occurs essentially only as the verb prefixes, or occasionally
in the non-final syllable of multi-syllable words. (I only found two
such instances in my database: {baQa'} and {chuQun}.)

The suffixes starting in H- are -Ha' (for verbs) and -Hom, -Hey (for
nouns). Verbs starting in Q- are {Qey} "be tight" and {Qom}
"experience an earthquake or tremor".

I'm not sure whether {Qom} can take an object (the earthquake that is
experienced, presumably); if so, then we have {vIqHom} "minor battle"
vs. {vIQom} "I experience it (the earthquake) / them (the tremors)",
{DaqHom} "minor place" vs. {DaQom} "you experience it/them", and
{boqHom} "minor coalition" vs. {boQom} "you all experience it/them".

Then there's also {baqHa'} "he mis-terminates" vs. {baQa'}
"*#$@%!!!"... and, I suppose, also {baQHa'} "he tosses the bat'leth
wrongly from one hand to the other", if you're not careful about
distinguishing the uvular fricative release of the {Q} from the velar
fricative of the {H}.

Hm, if we also consider the sequence {-QH-} vs. simply {-Q-}, we also
get {bIQHom} "minor water" vs. {bIQom} "you experience an earthquake
or tremor", {boQHom} "minor aid" vs. {boQom} "you all experience
it/them", {maQHom} "minor omen" vs. {maQom} "we experience an
earthquake or tremor", and {peQHom} "minor magnetism" vs. {peQom} "you
all, experience an earthquake or tremor!".


...OK, that got rather long and is probably of interest to about two people :)

tl;dr: do you pronounce {DaqHom} and {DaQom} differently? (Ignoring
the stress difference.) If not, do you think you should?

Cheers,
Philip
-- 
Philip Newton <[email protected]>

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