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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>ghItlhpu' 'eD, jatlh:<br>> I'm no canon authority, but I've noticed other compound words that<br><div>> strongly imply additional vocabulary.<br>> Klingons may not make a fetish of logic, but they don't abandon<br>> it completely like humans.<br><br>jang SuStel, jatlh: <br>> Languages are usually logical, but often the logic of language is not <br>> obvious. The details are usually buried in history.<br>> <br>> Perhaps there once was a noun *{wov} that meant "light," and that noun <br>> formed genitive constructions like *{maS wov}, *{jul wov}, and *{Hov <br>> wov}.<br><br>And it doesn't even need to have been a genitive construction. Formally {maS wov} "bright moon" would behave in most ways the same as a noun-noun construction, and we do have a number of other disyllabic nouns that have arisen from noun-adjectival constructs:<br><br>tajtIq "a type of knife" < taj tIq<br>bIQtIq "river" < bIQ tIq<br>naghboch "gemstone" < nagh boch<br>naHlet "nut" < naH let<br>naHjej "thistle" < naH jej<br>mu'tay' "vocabulary" < mu' tay'<br>Hovtay' "star system" < Hov tay'<br>maQmIgh "evil omen" < maQ mIgh<br><br>QeS<br></div> </div></body>
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