[924] in tlhIngan-Hol
Questions for Okrand: QongDaq
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon May 24 18:28:15 1993
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Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: mark <mark@dragonsys.COM>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Mon, 24 May 93 16:59:40 EST
Mark Shoulsonvo':
> Actually, I recall that the word used was "QongDaq", obviously
> a compound of "Qong"/sleep and "Daq"/place (not the locative
> suffix, tho presumably the two are related). Just as "jolpa'"
> is "transport room", so "QongDaq" is sleep-place or bed (cf.
> Esperanto dormejo, which would probably imply more of a
> building or room than a bed).
Yes, "dormejo" would be a building or room or other space set
aside or used for sleeping (e.g., in a camp it might be a
particular section of the great outdoors). There is a fairly new
suffix, -ab, meaning generally "piece of equipment for doing
[stem]", a back-formation from "lavabo" '(kitchen, bathroom,
etc.) sink', which could be applied to "dormi" to yield
"dormabo". My sense is that this word would apply (does apply)
to sleeping bags, futons, and so on, as well as what are normally
called "beds" or (Esp.) "litoj"; as, I suppose, "QongDaq"
probably does as well. I wonder, then, whether "QongDaq" can
also mean "bedroom, sleeping place" ("dormejo") or whether it has
been lexicalized with the meaning of "bed" to the exclusion of
other senses.
This reminds me of a similar case in English that I encountered
the other night while writing to a Swedish friend (in English).
Talking about fiction (the Moomintroll stories), I wanted to
contrast
(1) "book", in the usual sense of a volume filled with text,
against
(2a) comic books (which are usually of a thinness and publishing
schedule that classifies them as "magazines" rather than "books",
but that's yet another issue [NPI ;-) ])
and
(2b) thick, "book-sized" books whose contents are in comic-book
format: sequential frames of drawings with speech balloons and/or
blocks of narrative text.
But I couldn't say "text book", because that would look like a
form of "textbook", and the books I was talking about were not
written for study. "Bedroom" is probably "Qongpa'", but if
"QongDaq" has been lexicalized to mean just "bed", I wonder how
Klingons on ground maneuvers refer to the part of camp where they
sleep.
- marqem
Mark A. Mandel
Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : mark@dragonsys.com
