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

[Felix Malmenbeck]

> At this point new suffixes would have to not be very useful in order for it to be
> plausible that Maltz hadn't used them up to now.  That they functioned only in
> specialized fields of endeavour would be possible--and how's this for an idea:
> Maltz has been somewhat out of touch with the thrust of Klingon culture for
> some time, and what he doesn't know is that some scientific breakthrough
> back in the old wo' has moved a chunk of specialized vocabulary from an
> obscure, secretive science to everyday parlance, where it has taken on meanings
> useful to the general population.

That's certainly one possibility. I also wouldn't put it past Maltz to leave something out simply on the grounds of "You didn't ask." ;)

One possibility I would consider plausible is that there are affixes that *can* be used just about anywhere and be understood, but which for historical or cultural reasons are only used in particular types of sentences.

Consider for example a set of currently non-existing Type-2 verb suffixes:

-XXX = want, desire (more like neH than -qang)
-YYY = allowed, permitted (and -YYYbe' would roughly mean "forbidden")

Normally, these senses would be handled using multi-sentence constructions, such as:

{qaSaw vIneH.}
= "I want to marry you."

{De'vam Danaw' net chaw'.}
= "You are permitted to access this information."

However, they get a bit cumbersome when you start dealing with relative phrases and nominalizers, which is where these new suffixes might come in.

{mumaw'moH SawXXXghach. munay neHbe' be' vISawXXXbogh.}
= "Desire to marry drives me mad. The woman I want to marry does not want to marry me."

{QInHomvam luleghYYYbogh nuvpu''e' tIwIv.}
= "Decide who is allowed to see this message."

{Daq lu'elpu'mo' lu'elYYYbe'bogh nuvpu''e', yaS Hup ra'wI'.}
= "The commander punished the officer because people who were not allowed to enter the area had done so."

I don't know that any of these specific suffixes are the best examples, and I think these particular sentences aren't super-difficult to get around, but I think they illustrate an idea that I find quite interesting. 

________________________________________
From: David Joslyn <gaerfindel at hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 02:20
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] How would you feel about new Klingon morphemes? [was: New expression: Klingon for "dim sum" revealed‏]

On 4/26/2016 2:19 PM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:
> 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?
>
> [...]
> 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.
>
We are dealing with an entire *planet* of people, and it's already been
established that not everyone speaks {ta' Hol} ({Qotmaghnganpu'} in
particular).  For example, the main language doesn't differentiate
between inclusive and exclusive "we", but there could be variants that
do.(1)  I've come across conlangs that have a fourth person
pronoun/declination.  IOW "he/she/it over here (near to the speaker)" as
opposed to "he/she/it over there (away from the speaker)."(2)

As to specialized vocabulary, the more the better.  Same with slang
expressions and peculiar syntax.  I'm sure there are noun & verb
suffixes beyond those we already know from Maltz.


~quljIb


1. There are ways to work around this, of course.  {maja'chuq ghaH jIH
je.} or{maja'chuq chaH jIH je.}  "We (exclusive) are talking (to each
other)."  {maja'chuq soH jIH je.) or {maja'chuq tlhIH jIH je.} "We
(inclusive) are talking."

2. Again, there are workarounds.  {ja'chuq pa' be'pu} "Those women (over
there) are talking amongst themselves" vs. {ja'chuq naDev be'pu'} "These
women (over here) are talking amongst themselves".


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