[815] in tlhIngan-Hol
Suggestions for Marc Okrand: homophones
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed May 12 10:53:56 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: A.APPLEYARD@fs1.mt.umist.ac.uk
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: 12 May 93 09:51:12 GMT
erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu (Erich Schneider) ('avrIn) wrote on Tue 11 May 93
(Subject: additions to Klingon? (was Re: Two Exciting Announcemen):-
> As a Klingon might paraphrase Descartes:
> "jIQub vaj jIH." [= "I think therefore I am".]
My analyser analyses this as:-
jIQub ----- PP:I/- V:think
vaj ----- N:warrior* | A:[so|then|thus|in_that_case]
jIH ----- V:monitor* | P:[I|me] | N:viewing_screen
Sometimes, as here, context would resolve one ambiguity but two ambiguities
reinforce each other:-
I think, therefore (I am | he monitors).
I, (a|the) warrior, think.
I think; he monitors the warrior.
I, [who am the sentient computer built into] the warrior's viewing screen,
think.
(1) It is not clear that the isolated `jiH` is a whole clause and not one
word in a longer clause. There should be a Klingon verb for "exist".
(2) I call a viewing screen `HaStajiH` = "visual_display viewing_screen" to
distinguish from `jiH` = "I" = "the current speaker or writer". As Klingon
pronouns decline exactly as nouns, ambiguity between homophonous nouns and
pronouns is much more likely in Klingon than between English "I/eye/aye" or
"you/ewe/yew". Also I am tempted to call a warrior not `vaj` but `may'vaj` =
"battle warrior" to distinguish from the conjunction use of `vaj`. Best give
Marc Okrand a floppy with my Klingon analyser on, so that he can see from its
dictionary where all the homophones are, as (unlike in TKD) I have sorted all
words and suffixes and prefixes, both original and addendum and tape, into one
(ascii) alphabetical order.
(3) As was said before, an adverbial suffix is needed, like English "-ly".
(4) In Klingon, if C = ' b ch D gh H j l m n ng p Q q r S t tlh v w y, and V
= a e I o u, possible root-syllables are CV CVC CVrgh CVw' CVy', 2625 in all.
Of these 1370 are completely unused (type A), and 84 are not used alone but
occur in longer words (ignoring personal and place names) (type B). These
remaining free roots have to cater for all commonly-used so-far-unallocated
root meanings in science and technology etc and should be allocated wisely.
E.g. I mark `yiH` = "tribble" as a type B free root, as how often in ordinary
life do people need to mention tribbles? Also, the Klingon that we have is the
spaceman's variety, and what a spaceman uses a monosyllable for may have a
longer name in other people's mouths: e.g. a spaceman says `peng` = "[photon]
torpedo", but a diver may well say `peng` = "torpedo-shaped vehicle for a
diver to ride astride", and say `loghmay'peng` or the like on the odd
occasions when he does need to mention a space photon torpedo.
(5) E.g. `baH` V = "fire a missile" used without object may refer to
different weapons with different people, e.g. not "torpedoes" but "teargas
grenades" when `baH` is used by riot-police on land.
