[tlhIngan Hol] New words from "Miniatur Wunderland"

[qurgh lungqIj]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 2:27 PM Lieven L. Litaer <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:

> > On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 9:43 PM qurgh lungqIj <qurgh at wizage.net
> > <mailto:qurgh at wizage.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     This is always the case. My statement wasn't that {-Hom} always
> >     creates some new, separate, concept, it's that {-Hom} never means
> >     just "small" by itself. There has to be more to it.
>
> Am 02.04.2019 um 17:37 schrieb nIqolay Q:
> > There /can/ be more to it, and often is, but I don't see anything that
> > suggests there /has/ to be more to it.
>
> I'm sorry to contradict qurgh, but if we decide to stick to the literal
> explanation of TKD, it clearly says that these suffixes can refer to
> size without "more to it":
>

Don't be sorry! :D Contradiction leads to interesting conversations.


>
> TKD, chapter 3.3.1:
> This suffix [-'a'] indicates that what the noun refers to is bigger,
> more important, or more powerful than it would be without the suffix.
>

But none of the example use the word "big" or "large". Okrand had a chance
to use simple scale words like "big" and "small", but instead uses "major",
"strong", and "ultimate", all of which imply something more than *just* a
increase in scale/size.

A "strong wind" is one that can blow you over, or knock over a tree,
there's more than scale change here.
A "major blunder" is one really big deal. It's not just a "big" blunder,
it's a "major" blunder. This is a change in size, but it's more than just
"big".
"Ultimate power" is more than just "big power" or "a lot of power", it's
the "ultimate" power. It's all the power in the world, again this is more
than just "big"

One must take into consideration the examples as well as the text. They are
the actual Klingon canon after all and rules taken out of context could be
misleading (not suggesting you are trying to do that, just that is can
happen).


> [-Hom] [...] indicates that what the noun refers to is smaller, less
> important, or less powerful than it would be without the suffix.
>

But Okrand doesn't use the word "small" in any of his examples. They are
all more than *just* small:

A "wisp of air" is something you can barely feel, if anything it's closer
to {nu'} air than {mach}.
A "temporary peace" has nothing to do with size, but duration.


>
> Listing items in an OR-sentence with commas, means "smaller OR less
> important OR less powerful". So the possibility of "smaller" works
> without anything more.


> That is even confirmed on page 152 of KGT:
> [...] the noun suffix {-Hom,} a diminutive that adds a meaning of
> smallness or lack of importance (compare {taj} ["knife"] and {tajHom}
> ["little knife," the extra small blade in the handle of a <d’k tahg>
> knife]).
>
> Again, it says "smallness" OR "importance", not both.
>
> So basically, in addition to the idea of a different meaning (as be'Hom
> etc), these suffixes can certainly also be used to mean something that's
> just smaller/bigger than the standard noun
>

See, this is where I interpret the English differently from you. I
interpret the list of "or"s as examples of different ways of looking at the
same thing (same with "adds a meaning of smallness and/or lack of
importance"). Like how {ghoS} can mean "approach" or "go away from" or
"proceed" or "come" or "follow (a course)" depending on the context, or
{-Daj} can mean "his" or "her" or "its". For me, {-Hom} and {-'a'} mean all
the things listed, with some objects leaning more toward one of the
meanings than the other depending on context, but when I read a word like
{naQHom} I think of it as a {naQ} that can be smaller, and/or less
important, and/or less powerful. It can be one, it can be all.

Based on the examples in TKD, and KGTs "meaning of smallness", it seems
like if there is just a change in size, then the change is more than what
{tIn/mach} can do by themselves. The {tajHom} on a {Daqtagh} aren't *just*
small knives, they are tiny mini-blades. {SuSHom} is a tiny "wisp of air".
{woQ'a'} is "ultimate power".

Ultimately, this is my point: {-Hom} doesn't equal {mach}, and {-'a'}
doesn't equal {tIn}, there is much more to the suffixes than those two
words.

qurgh
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