[tlhIngan Hol] using {ngan} as a suffix {ngan} as the suffix {-ngan}

[Iikka Hauhio]

I might have used the word lexicalized in two different contexts with different meanings.

When talking about the writing system, it is not "naturally developed". Even in fiction, it is a constructed writing system, so words are not written as they are because in time people started to write them as such (process known as "lexicalization"), but because one person decided how to write them. So the written forms are not "lexicalized" (not the words but the Okrandian notation representations of them).

So if I interpret you correctly, you argue that Klingons themselves label some compounds as lexicalized as some as not, on a basis unknown to us. Then Okrand depicts this fictional lexicalization with the spaces.

If what Lieven said is true (and I interpreted him correctly), this was nor originally Okrand's idea. Even if it was, I don't see why we need to mark this categorization as we don't actually know what it means.

Outside the fiction of Klingon, I argue that all canon compounds (spaces or no spaces) in TKD, KGT and other dictionary listings are lexicalized, unless explicitly stated by Okrand that they are not. Spaces are not useful in this regard.

I'm not promoting any particular alternative punctuation. I'm just saying that the current usage is not consistent and that there are possible ways to write consistently:

- Write canon compounds without spaces
- Write genitive compounds without spaces
- Write compounds with max two parts without spaces
- Write no compounds without spaces
- etc.

Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Wednesday, January 26th, 2022 at 22.55, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 1/26/2022 3:28 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
>
>> Maybe my previous message wasn'r clear. In English, some nouns are written together and some are not for historical reasons (because they are lexicalized such way).
>
> No. In English, some nouns are lexicalized as written together and some are not because the lexicons are attempting to reflect current usage. It's not the other way around.
>
>> With Klingon, there is are no lexicalized words. The Okrandian notation is a human-made brand new writing system with no (fictive) history. There is no reason to add historic ambiguity.
>
> So are we using different definitions of the word lexicalized? I'm using it to mean those words that Okrand has given to us as the product of a (fictitious) Klingon informant saying, "This is a real word." Sometimes it's not always easy to tell when Maltz is giving us a word that would appear in a dictionary on Kronos and when he's trying to find a good translation for some human concept, but we have plenty of definitely-in-a-dictionary examples to work from.
>
> What I've been talking about has nothing to do with whether Klingons writing in their own script routinely combine nouns into complex nouns or keep them separate. It's all about how we write Klingon. I haven't said anything about historic ambiguity in the latinized Klingon writing system; I only mentioned ambiguity in the context of hyphens in English nouns.
>
>> So what does using spaces mean. It does not mean:
>>
>> - Lexicalization
>> - Whether the word is in the dictionary or not
>> - Whether the word is canon or not
>> - Special grammar, as we can interpret it as a regular noun-noun cosntruct and it follows the same rules (not including yejquv, SeHjan, etc.)
>> - Historical reason (as the writing system is "new")
>>
>> There seems to be no meaning.
>
> For a third time.
>
> It doesn't have a grammatical meaning in spoken Klingon.
>
> It is a convention that we follow so we can keep straight what's lexicalized and what isn't.
>
> I don't see how I can explain that any clearer.
>
>>> In Finnish and German, it's not important, because you haven't got a fictional race whose language you are trying to piece together through fictitious anthropological and archaeological research. You can ask native Finnish and German speakers, "Is this a word you'd find in the dictionary?" That is almost impossible in Klingon, and even where it is possible, it's done through someone who failed to live up to your ideal of not-English when he invented it.
>>
>> Irrelevant, as the spacing does not signify whether or not the word is included in a dictionary.
>
> Wow. Whenever a discussion covers several topics, you always cherry-pick an argument from one part and apply it to another to show how it doesn't work.
>
> When a student of Klingon comes across a sentence like vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbejDIvI', if they're as awesome as a Finn they're going to be looking in the word-list for the word ngeHbejDIvI', and they'll fail to find it. They'll have to find and differentiate between ngeH, ngeHbej, bej, DI, vI', and DIvI'. This sentence is already hard to figure out because of its origin, but honestly the only way to really parse it is to point out that it looks like this: vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbej DI vI'. For the sake of understanding sentences like this easier, we go along with the convention that we put spaces between words that have been lexicalized for us.
>
> Not because it's said any differently.
>
> Not because the grammar changes.
>
> Simply because the convention has been established to make it easier to understand.
>
> Now, if it's really the case that spacing doesn't matter, then it also doesn't matter if we do include spacing, so what are you complaining about?
>
>>> Yes, it is a CONVENTION for us. Another convention we use is spacing noun-nouns that aren't lexicalized as no-space compounds. Not because Klingon grammar demands it, but because we want to keep distinct our knowledge of what is a known term and what is something we made up ourselves.
>>
>> As "tuq Degh" etc. shows, there are "known terms" not made by us written without a space.
>
> You're cherry-picking from different parts of the argument again.
>
>>> It's not a grammatical requirement; it's a convention to keep ourselves sane.
>>
>> What exactly is it that keeps us sane? Can you give me one consitent property that compounds written without a space have that compounds written with a space don't? It doesn't seem to mean anything.
>
> Totally not what I argued and said explicitly two times before this message.
>
>> According to Lieven, Okrand uses spaces inconsistently as Klingon wasn't supposed to be a written language and the Okrandian notation was supposed to be a pronunciation guide. If this is true, why should we bother to use spaces consistently?
>
> If this is true, then why shouldn't we impose our own convention of including spaces?
>
> Now, let's remember that there ARE certain situations where Okrand has explicitly said that spacing matters.
>
> http://klingon.wiki/En/Spacing
>
> DI'raq loD, and all male/female distinctions for animals, are written as two words, we are told.
>
> Okrand edited qo'Sor to qo' Sor in The Klingon Art of War.
>
> wabDo as one word means a measurement term (Mach); wab Do as two words means speed of sound.
>
> With two exceptions, all XQeD and Xtej sciences and scientist words are written with no space, we are told.
>
> So there ARE grammatical differences with spaces after all.
>
> Hey, maybe they're not clearly understood. It's possible. But that would suggest that keeping the words separate is the safer thing to do, right? After all, TKD tells us how to construct noun-nouns but not that we can put together our own one-word compounds.
>
> If only we could establish a convention that handles this for us...
>
> --
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
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