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

[Iikka Hauhio]

> Where you are getting your interpretation is mysterious. Okrand “depicts” lexicalization of a term the same way any linguist does: by including it in a dictionary. This is explicit in the first paragraph of TKD section 3.4. The noun-noun construction. Read it yourself and reflect that it contradicts a lot of both what you’re saying and what you’re misconstruing others as saying.

As I have said before, there are entries in Okrand's dictionaries that have spaces. Therefore, the spacing does not tell us whether or not the word is found in a dictionary or not.

>From TKD:

> Some combinations of two (or more) nouns in a row are so common as to have become everyday words. These are the compound nouns (as discussed in section 2.0.0). In addition, it is possible to combine nouns in the manner of a compound noun to produce a new construct even if it is not a legitimate compound noun ("legitimate" in the sense that it would be found in a dictionary).

Okrand contradicts himself by including compound nouns with spaces in his dictionary. If they are in the dictionary, they should be "legitimate" and therefore be written without spaces.

That, or then he is referring to a fictional Klingon dictionary and not his own dictionary. We don't know on what basis fictional Klingons include words in their dictionaries. That is what I referred to when I said "Then Okrand depicts this fictional lexicalization with the spaces."

Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Thursday, January 27th, 2022 at 01.03, Alan Anderson <qunchuy at alcaco.net> wrote:

> On Jan 26, 2022, at 11:32 AM, Iikka Hauhio fergusq at protonmail.com wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Where you are getting your interpretation is mysterious. Okrand “depicts” lexicalization of a term the same way any linguist does: by including it in a dictionary. This is explicit in the first paragraph of TKD section 3.4. The noun-noun construction. Read it yourself and reflect that it contradicts a lot of both what you’re saying and what you’re misconstruing others as saying.
>
> SuStel has repeated his core statement more than enough times: the convention here is to use spaces in noun-noun constructions. The pragmatic reason is because it makes it possible for people to read them as written. (There’s also a prescriptive argument pointing out that TKD tells us how to interpret spaceless compounds when we see them, but when it tells us that we can make something like them ourselves it uses spaces between the words.)
>
> -- ghunchu'wI'