<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/3/2020 12:37 PM, SCOTT wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:42215557.3.1601743048376@localhost">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I am curious about the etymology of {De'wI'} ("computer"). {De'} is a noun meaning "data." {-wI'} is, of course, both a noun suffix ('my") and a verb suffix ("thing which does").
Normally, I would expect a noun to to take a nouns suffix. That would make {De'wI'} "my data," hardly a likely translation of "computer."
It seems, rather, that the noun {De'} is taking the verb suffix, making it "thing which... datas (?)." Is that, in fact, what is happening here? If so, are there other known cases of nouns taking verb suffixes, or of verbs taking noun suffixes?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>A similar word is <b>DeghwI'</b><i> helmsman,</i> which makes
one really want to translate <b>Degh</b> as <i>helm (v),</i> but
we have no such word. Likewise, <b>De'wI'</b> <i>computer</i>
makes one want to translate <b>De'</b> as <i>compute (v),</i>
but we also have no such word.</p>
<p>See TKD section 3.2.3 "Other complex nouns" for why we can't
analyze these nouns this way. We can't do the etymological
research called for because Klingons aren't real.</p>
<p>I wonder if the Old Klingon text in <i>paq'batlh</i> has any
illuminating examples of such words. This would be an interesting
philological study...<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
</body>
</html>