[tlhIngan Hol] number of words

[SuStel]

On 11/22/2019 9:19 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
>> {ghoj} and {ghojmoH} only count as one word because the second version
>> is only a suffixed version of the first.
>
> Add {ghojmoHwI'} to that list.

But are you questioning the "one-wordness" of these words because 
/learn, teach,/ and /teacher/ are considered different words in English 
(and maybe German), or because of some inherent reason to do so in Klingon?

In English, we generally consider inflected forms to all be the same 
word, but not all affixes. /Teach, teaches, taught, teaching/ are all 
the same word in different forms. But /teacher,/ /teachable,/ 
/teacherly, teachability,/ /unteach, /and /teacherage/ are all 
considered different words, not to mention words you can coin on the 
spot with suffixes like /teacheresque, teacherlike,/ or /teachaholic./ 
And what about clitics, like /teacher's?/
//

So what makes you decide that *-moH* and *-wI'* have special standing to 
form new words? Because they appear in /The Klingon Dictionary /with 
their own entries? That wasn't done because they're considered separate 
words; that was only done to make English–Klingon lookups easier: a new 
student looking for the word /teacher/ isn't going to look up the word 
/learn/ and then add a *-moH* to it; they're going to look for the word 
/teach./

What about *-ghach?* Is *naDHa'ghach* a distinctly different word than 
*naD? naD* is both a noun and a verb; the only thing the *-ghach* is 
doing is adding the *-Ha'* sense to the noun that already exists.

What about the type 2 suffixes? Isn't *puvvIp */afraid to fly/ a rather 
different concept than *puv*/fly?/ Shouldn't it count as a separate word?

Let's not be so certain we know how to count words in Klingon. When 
confronted with the question, it would be much better to clarify that 
one is talking about the count of word roots, and that you can add many 
affixes to form longer words.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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