[992] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: verbs in compounds (was: Re: epithets (taHqeq))
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jun 16 17:07:30 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: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 11:37:53 PDT
In-Reply-To: "A.APPLEYARD@fs1.mt.umist.ac:uk:Xerox's message of Tue, 15 Jun 199
A.APPLEYARD:
>> I have found nothing in TKD to say what Klingon compounds can be made of.
Verbs occur in compound nouns in English, e.g. "blow" in "blowtorch" and "pry"
in "pry bar". And since English adjectives are translated into Klingon as
verbs, how to translate into Klingon the very common 'bahuvrihi' type of
English adjective + noun compound 'XY' meaning "someone or something whose Y
is X", e.g. "redhead"? The obvious translation is `Doqjib` or `Doqnach`, but
`Doq` is a verb. And `taHqeq` can likewise be read bahuvrihi as "someone whose
`qeq` is `taH`" = "someone whose army drill is enduring or at a negative
angle".<<
I've been away for a couple of days, so excuse me if I've missed some
subsequent discussion.
I'm afraid I must disagree with Mr. Appleyard here. I cited chapter and verse
of the relevant sections of TKD that state quite clearly how Klingon compounds
are constructed. In a nutshell, compounds are composed of 2 or 3 nouns, and
those nouns can include nominalized verbs. That's all we know for now. The
fact that English can form compounds with verbs or adjectives, as in
"blowtorch" or "prybar" or "redhead" is beside the point. Some languages don't
allow compounding at all. Klingon has it's own morphotactic rules (i.e. rules
that determine how words can be put together out of morpheme parts), and right
now those rules are limited to noun compounds.
I'm afraid that the difficulty of translating an English word like "redhead" is
no argument for allowing a parallel construction in Klingon or any other
language. Ideally, we should just ask a native how to translate it. Second
best, we can scrutinize all available Klingon materials, TKD, Star Trek dialog,
and The Tape, to find relevant descriptions or examples. As far as I know,
there is currently no support at all for Mr. Appleyard's compound VV and VN
solutions. A morphological analyzer should not return such pseudo-solutions.
Ken Beesley
