[617] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Resend of bounced mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Apr 20 23:51:28 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Ken_Beesley.PARC@xerox.com
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 19:00:26 PDT
In-Reply-To: "krankor@codex.prds.cdx.mot:com:Xerox's message of Tue, 20 Apr 199
>>If we can agree that we can always
put -ghach on any verb to get that meaning of -ness, then I'll go along with
you on the derived ones.<<
>>--Krankor<<
As you obviously know, the explanation of -ghach is very sketchy, and it almost
implies that it's a suffix that appears on verbs that also have some other
suffix present. But in the spirit of the rest of the description, I presently
see no choice but to allow the Type 9 -ghach to attach productively to any
verb, bare or otherwise suffixed.
The few -ghach examples feel like -ness or -ity or -ation to me. Are there
more on the tape? This might lead to examples like the following:
[already explicitly in the lexicon]
buv V classify
buv N classification
and also, by morphological rule?
?buvghach = classify + -ness/-ity/-ation
It might also be glossed as "(the) classifying (of something)".
>>we have no other example of a suffix
being restricted to only certain verb forms (even though certain combinations
might have no sensible semantic meaning).<<
There are, in fact, several such restrictions. For example, the Type 9 suffix
-vIS ("while") appears only in words that also have the Type 7 suffix -taH
("continuous aspect"). See p. 43. The -'egh ("oneself") reflexive can appear
only on verbs with "no object" prefixes; the -chuq ("one another") suffix can
appear only on verbs that have _plural_ "no object" prefixes (pp. 35-36). And
the -lu' suffix can appear only on verbs having the prefixes that normally
indicate a third-person singular object (p. 39). There are more. Making the
analyzer respect these co-occurrence requirements and restrictions was quite an
exercise.
Until we hear differently, I've let -ghach be productive.
Stepping out of character for a minute, what would you all think about a
follow-up to TKD? Would you be upset if Okrand came out with a much revised
description, entitled something like "Modern Standard Klingon," that not only
clarified issues but did some major revision? I think that Okrand may have
painted himself into a corner on a few issues in TKD. He could always appeal
to the dialect problem, citing the problems of working with one captive
informant, who may have represented a minority dialect or was perhaps not an
educated speaker at all. "Modern Standard Klingon" could represent the
official, academy sanctioned, version of the language that transcends dialectal
variation and is recommended for foreigners to learn.
Best wishes,
Ken Beesley
