[2513] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: -ghach
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jan 12 08:58:34 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: nsn@vis.mu.OZ.AU (Nick NICHOLAS)
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 0:36:31 EDT
In-Reply-To: <01H7KH22D5ZM8X0D4S@delphi.com>; from "DSTRADER@delphi.com" at Jan
11, 94 8:17 pm
batlh choja', DSTRADER@delphi.com quv:
=It is widely agreed that {-ghach} is highly overused.
Must have missed that consensus ;) (Of course, I speak Esperanto and Lojban,
two languages which make heavy use of their equivalents of -ghach)
=Personally I try to
=restrict my usages to two main circumstances:
=2) Clarifying that a certain word is definitely a noun, to disambiguate it
=from the alternative one might find in interpreting it as a verb (note: I
=use this rather sparingly, and it is probably not widely accepted usage).
=If a word can be used as either a noun or verb, I wouldn't normally use
={-ghach}, but to clarify its status as a noun. Cases in which this occurs are
=rare, however.
I've used -ghach for this purpose once or twice; my linguistic intuition,
however, tells me that there are other devices in the language probably
preferred, as more general, for this kind of job: Type 3 noun and Type 6 and 7
verb suffixes.
=I don't believe that {-ghach} should _ever_ be required, except when verb
=suffixes are involved, and that is the limit of my opinion on restrictions of
=The Nominalizer.
Depends on what you mean by 'required'. -Ha', or -moH, conribute to meaning;
-qu' and -taH much less so. If I want to translate 'desire', the -qu'- or
-taH- in neHtaHghach/neHqu'ghach isn't really *required* semantically; it
just seems that it's necessary morphologically.
=I've never really agreed with Krankor's usage of {-ghach} as a gerund marker.
=Tacking subjects and objects onto nominalized verbs creates vaguity and
=ambiguity.
I can't see how, when they serve to tell you who's doing the action in the
nominalisation, and to whom. Interestingly, though I like these a lot, I
find myself using them much less. Where a month ago I would have used
jIDachghach, I would now use DachtaHghachwIj.
=If you don't mind, I should now like to come to grips with reality.
=THERE IS NO SENTENCES-AS-SUBJECTS CONSTRUCTION IN KLINGON!!!!!!!!!!
=yet.
There is nothing bad but thinking makes it so! ;)
=Pestering Okrand is imesho a good idea. I'm sure he's quite capable of
=developing his language further in vocabulary as well as in grammar. Altho,
=he may have no real awareness as to how in-expressive his language is as yet.
=Ask him to translate a book of th Bible or two, and we might see a slightly
=more enthusiastic attitude in Okrand about further developing the language.
I think you exaggerate on the inexpressiveness of tlhIngan Hol. The language,
I feel, needs a slight engine-tuning, not a new chassis. I'd certainly not
welcome Okrand adding tens of words to make his translating easier, when
I've spent so many an hour without that kind of license! We need to be ever
vigilant of Making Klingon expressive versus Making it just like English.
As I've mentioned, in Comrie's book on typology, I found that there are
languages out there that form relative clauses like Klingon --- both
Okrandian (Imbabura Quechua) and Krankorian Klingon (Bambara). The fact
that Quechua doesn't give a damn about the ambiguity of their relative
clauses means that we've just slid Klingon along the typological scale
in the direction of English. This was rather a humbling realisation for me.
Let's not make a habit of modifying Klingon this way (it'll be inevitable
anyway, since Klingon is used by English speakers alone, but let's not do
it wilfully.)
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breather {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
nsn@krang.vis.mu.oz.au -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias
