[1615] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: mI'QeD ngerwIj gholpu'vaD jIjatlh
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Oct 7 17:31:52 1993
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
From: Captain Krankor <krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot.com>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.east.sun.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 93 17:25:14 -0400
For the record, I would just like to officially come out opposed to "-vI"qoq.
Certainly I acknowledge the need to do something fractional, and -vI' *might*
prove to be it. But it really is based on *way* too little evidence.
Suppose I were learning English for the first time and stumbled on the word
"percent". I might well recognize 'cent' as meaning 100 (as in centigrade,
centimeter, or the US currency cent). Could I conclude that therefore I could
make any reciprocal by sticking per- on front of the number? So perfour == 1/4
?
It just doesn't work. Ok, the analogy limps a little because cent is not
the usual word for 100, but still. Indeed, I *think* percent is also the Frenc
h
word for percent, in which case the analogy works 100%, since cent is indeed
the word for 100. I'm fairly clear the French do not make fractions by saying
pertrois for 1/3, etc. In short, one example does not a rule make. We would
need some kind of evidence that -vI' is indeed a suffix, a separate morpheme
unto itself, not just a syllable. I think a re-reading of 3.2.3 (p. 20) is
in order.
So the other two takes would be to either pretend it's legit (be it
in a wide or narrow scope, such as only-on-this-list or whatever) or
try to get Okrand to sanction it. Obviously I am opposed to any
made-up stuff and won't go into that again here. As far as getting
Okrand to sanction it, I think it better not to try to tell Okrand
how to do his language. It's one thing to try to put into channels a stated
need, as in "We need a way to express fractions." It's entirely different to
try to tell him what the solution should be, as in "and it ought to be a
suffix, such as -vI', that goes on number words". Maybe, maybe not. Maybe
it should be a separate word. Maybe he'll pull a *real* turn-about on us and
it'll be a prefix. But I think that it's only polite to let *him* decide what
it should be-- and I suspect that not dictating to him will make him more likel
y
to want to provide us with stuff in general. But all this is just one man's
opinion. Perhaps Lawrence, who has had far more direct conversation with Dr.
Okrand than, I suspect, any of us, can shed some more light on this (or even
tell me I've got my head up my ass {{:-) I certainly would be
delighted to have needs presented to the esteemed pabpo''a' in any
format that suits him. {{:-)
--Captain Krankor
(of the famous ensemble "Krankor and the Krankettes")
