[tlhIngan Hol] ghoj

[SuStel]

On 9/27/2023 1:31 PM, Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:
> {ghoj} “learn” is obviously a root word. {ghojmoH} “teach” is 
> obviously derivative, but since the English gloss is a different word, 
> most people count it as a distinct word worth counting. Similarly, 
> there’s {ghojwI’} “student, and {ghojmoHwI’} “teacher”, and while 
> we’re at it, {ghojmoHwI’’a’} “professor”, thought that doesn’t count 
> because it hasn’t made it into the lexicon, despite being pretty obvious.

I think "distinct word" is the wrong thing to be looking for. "Unit of 
meaning," maybe "lexeme," is more useful in Klingon. I think all the 
words you gave above are distinct words, whether or not they are 
lexemes, in the same way that /run, ran, running, runs/ are all distinct 
words but not distinct lexemes.

The main reason we have words like *ghojmoH* in /The Klingon Dictionary/ 
is because people would want to look up the word for /teach/ in the 
English–Klingon side, and if the word appears in that side it would also 
appear in the Klingon–English side. In a top-notch translation 
dictionary I would expect the English–Klingon dictionary to only list 
English lookup words, and the Klingon-English dictionary to only list 
Klingon lookup words, but within the K-E lookups various important 
inflections with distinct English translations could be given. For instance:

*ghoj*/learn/*
//ghojmoH* /teach; /*ghojwI'*/student/

The implication would not be "These are all lexemes," but rather "This 
is a lexeme, and here are some derived forms that may correspond to 
distinct words in English that you might be looking for." You wouldn't 
see every possible inflection, just some significant ones, and there 
would be no implication intended that other inflections are less valuable.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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