[Tlhingan-hol] How would you feel about new Klingon morphemes? [was: New expression: Klingon for "dim sum" revealed‏]

[Felix Malmenbeck]

qunnoq raises an interesting matter which I've been meaning to ask the community about for a while:

How would you all feel about learning more suffixes than the ones we currently know?

In the first edition of TKD, Marc Okrand wrote:

"The grammatical sketch is intended to be an outline of Klingon grammar, not a complete description."

And in the addendum, he reiterates this point:

"The original edition of this dictionary was never intended to contain a complete description of the Klingon language, but only an outline of some of its more important grammatical features and a representative sample of its vocabulary. Since its appearance, study of the language has continued and a great deal more has been learned. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, including the recession currently affecting most of this sector as well as recent political changes, research funds have become more difficult to come by, delaying the completion of analysis of the language. [...] Nevertheless, enough new information has been gleaned about Klingon that adding an addendum to the dictionary, even a brief one, seems beneficial."

He then introduces several new suffixes, all of them in already familiar suffix types (such as Type-6 Verb Suffixes and Type-1 Noun Suffixes).

So, there has always been an indication that there *might* be additional suffixes to be gleaned, but with the exception of a couple of slang suffixes (-luH and -la') in KGT, I don't believe we've actually seen any since 1992, which can give the impression that what we've got is all there is.

Back to the original question: How would you feel about new suffixes being revealed?

For the sake of discussion, assume you think these new suffixes make sense within your perception of how the Klingon language should work. It helps you express something that you want to express in Klingon, and it makes sense to you that Klingons would use a suffix to do so.

Also, assume that it doesn't render what we already know *incorrect*, but perhaps a bit obsolete.

Would you welcome them with open arms? Or do you feel that the suffix list should be "locked"?

Do you feel that some parts of speech should be more open to updates than others?
[For example, would you react as strongly to a new number suffix as to a new noun or verb suffix?]

Would you want some explanation as to why we haven't heard of these new suffixes before? For example that they are much less commonly used than the ones we already have, or that Klingon grammarians consider them to be different somehow from those we already know?

Would you like to see specialized morphemes for different groups of people, just as there are specialized? Might chemists have suffixes that you'd never hear while talking to a philosopher, and vice versa?

There are many aspects to consider! Personally I would love to see a handful of new suffixes, as long as they were carefully chosen and help us express things that are currently cumbersome to explain.

I also think that it would make sense for certain professions to have sets of commonly used affixes which do not really contribute to the Klingon language at large except indirectly. Consider for example the suffix -ose, which is used in chemistry to a sugar. If you asked me for a list of English suffixes, I probably wouldn't think to include it, because most speakers would never actually use it as a suffix; we only ever use it as part of words that originated in chemistry and then became more popular, such as sucrose or dextrose. As such, it's almost more a point of etymology than one of morphology.        
-ya' could be seen as similar to -ose in that sense, as it is not applied to words to change their meaning, but makes its way into the language for historical reasons.

    
________________________________________
From: mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 19:20
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol]     New expression: Klingon for "dim sum" revealed‏

ok, I don't want to derail the conversation ;

I would just like to add (because if I don't I will explode..), that I
don't give a rodent's Sa'Hut for new words ; I would die though for a
new suffix..

I apologise for this intrusion. please continue with the actual thread..

qunnoq

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 7:03 PM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> QeS:
>> jabmeH mIwvetlhvaD motlh 'aSralya'Daq /dim sum/ wIpongbe'; maHvaD /yum cha/
>> ponglu'.
>
> mIwvaD jam2 caa4 (飲茶) ponglu'; SojvaD dim2 sam1 (點心) ponglu'. 飲茶taHvIS
> vay', 點心 Sop. :-)
>
> http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E9%A3%B2%E8%8C%B6
> http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E9%BB%9E%E5%BF%83
>
> QeS:
>> {Dargh tlhutlh} 'oS Guangdong Hol mu'mey /jam caa/, 'ach Darghvetlh
>> tlhutlhlu'taHvIS chaq Soj Soplu' je 'e' 'oS mu'tlheghHomvam. /jam caa/vo'
>> mu'maj /yum cha/ wItlhappu' maH.
>
> {tlhutlh} 'oS 飲 'ej {Dargh} 'oS 茶, 'ach pIm {Dargh tlhutlh} 飲茶 je. Soj
> luboptaHvIS Cantonese Hol mu'tlheghmey, SorHa' Holvam jatlhwI'pu'.
>
> For whatever reason, Cantonese (maybe Chinese in general?) uses
> synecdoches everywhere when talking about food. 飲茶 literally means "to
> drink tea" but actually means "to have a (usually small) meal
> (typically outside the home)", even if you're not drinking tea. 食飯
> literally means "to eat rice" but actually means "to have a meal (one
> of the main meals of the day)", even if you're not actually eating
> rice. So you can literally say something like "When you ate rice
> (i.e., had dinner), what did you eat?" and answer "When I ate rice, I
> ate pizza (i.e., I had pizza for dinner)". {Dargh tlhutlh} doesn't
> convey what 飲茶 actually means.
>
> I mentioned earlier about 點菜 dim2 coi3 meaning "to order a dish". 菜
> literally means "vegetables", but you say 點菜 even when you're ordering
> a meat dish. We always say that you can't translate from one language
> to another by translating word-for-word, and this is especially true
> when talking about food in Cantonese.
>
> 飲茶taHvIS vay', motlh 點心 Sop ('ach 點心 SopnISbe'); 'ej 點心 SoptaHvIS
> vay', ghaytan 飲茶lI' vay' ('ach chaq 飲茶be').
>
> QeS:
>> /yum cha/ pongmoHbogh meqHeymaj'e' vISovchu'be', 'ach wa' DuH vIQublaH.
>> naDev /dim sum/vo' latlh mu' tlhaplu'pu' je: /dim sim/. Ha'DIbaH, cabbage
>> pormey je ngaS /dim sim/: naDev roD mIQlu', 'ach rut publu'. Guangdong Soj
>> /siu mai/ rur, 'ach vutmeH loQ /dim sim/ nap law' /siu mai/ nap puS 'e'
>> vIHar, puSqu'mo' Soj Seghmey'e' yughbogh /dim sim/.
>>
>> chaq naDev /yum cha/ lo'choHlu'pu', tlhoy rurchuqlaw'mo' /dim sum/ /dim sim/
>> je? jISovbe' jIH.
>
> 'ach /dim sum/ bopbogh qID 'oH /dim sim/ pong'e', qar'a'?
>
> I don't know how things are in Australia and to what degree various
> Chinese topolects influence the English speakers, but in Hong Kong
> Cantonese, we use 飲茶 for the activity and 點心 for the dishes. They are
> overlapping but distinct concepts, like {noS} and {nay'}.
>
> --
> De'vID
>
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