<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">I might have used the word lexicalized in two different contexts with different meanings.<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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).<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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.<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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.<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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.<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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:<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Write canon compounds without spaces<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Write genitive compounds without spaces<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Write compounds with max two parts without spaces<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Write no compounds without spaces<br></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- etc.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio<br></div></div><div class="protonmail_quote">
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐<br>
On Wednesday, January 26th, 2022 at 22.55, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="protonmail_quote" type="cite">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/26/2022 3:28 PM, Iikka Hauhio
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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).</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"> 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.<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>So are we using different definitions of the word <i>lexicalized?</i>
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.</p>
<p>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 <i>we</i>
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.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">So what does
using spaces mean. It does not mean:<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">-
Lexicalization<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Whether the
word is in the dictionary or not<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Whether the
word is canon or not<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Special
grammar, as we can interpret it as a regular noun-noun
cosntruct and it follows the same rules (not including yejquv,
SeHjan, etc.)<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">- Historical
reason (as the writing system is "new")<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">There seems to
be no meaning. <br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>For a third time.</p>
<p>It doesn't have a grammatical meaning in spoken Klingon.</p>
<p>It is a convention that we follow so we can keep straight what's
lexicalized and what isn't.</p>
<p>I don't see how I can explain that any clearer.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial;
text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline
!important;"><span style="font-family:-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont,
"Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu,
Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14px" class="size">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.</span></span></span><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">Irrelevant, as
the spacing does not signify whether or not the word is
included in a dictionary.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>When a student of Klingon comes across a sentence like <b>vaj
toDuj Daj ngeHbejDIvI',</b> if they're as awesome as a Finn
they're going to be looking in the word-list for the word <b>ngeHbejDIvI',</b>
and they'll fail to find it. They'll have to find and
differentiate between <b>ngeH, ngeHbej, bej, DI, vI', </b>and <b>DIvI'.</b>
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: <b>vaj toDuj Daj ngeHbej DI vI'.</b> 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.</p>
<p>Not because it's said any differently.</p>
<p>Not because the grammar changes.</p>
<p>Simply because the convention has been established to make it
easier to understand.</p>
<p>Now, if it's really the case that spacing doesn't matter, then it
also doesn't matter if we <i>do</i> include spacing, so what are
you complaining about?<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">
<div>> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial;
text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline
!important;"><span style="font-family:-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont,
"Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu,
Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14px" class="size">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.</span></span></span><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">As "tuq Degh"
etc. shows, there are "known terms" not made by us written
without a space.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>You're cherry-picking from different parts of the argument again.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial;
text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline
!important;"><span style="font-family:-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont,
"Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu,
Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" class="font"><span style="font-size:14px" class="size">It's not a grammatical
requirement; it's a convention to keep ourselves sane.</span></span></span><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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.<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Totally not what I argued and said explicitly two times before
this message.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px;">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?<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>If this is true, then why <i>shouldn't</i> we impose our own
convention of including spaces?</p>
<p>Now, let's remember that there ARE certain situations where
Okrand has explicitly said that spacing matters.</p>
<p><a href="http://klingon.wiki/En/Spacing" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://klingon.wiki/En/Spacing</a></p>
<p><b>DI'raq loD,</b> and all male/female distinctions for animals,
are written as two words, we are told.<br>
</p>
<p>Okrand edited <b>qo'Sor</b> to <b>qo' Sor</b> in <i>The
Klingon Art of War.</i></p>
<p><b>wabDo</b> as one word means a measurement term <i>(Mach);</i>
<b>wab Do</b> as two words means <i>speed of sound.</i></p>
<p>With two exceptions, all <b>XQeD</b> and <b>Xtej</b> sciences
and scientist words are written with no space, we are told.</p>
<p>So there ARE grammatical differences with spaces after all.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>If only we could establish a convention that handles this for
us...</p>
<pre cols="72" class="moz-signature">--
SuStel
<a href="http://trimboli.name" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
</blockquote><br>
</div>