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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/27/2023 1:31 PM, Will Martin via
tlhIngan-Hol wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:A05CAF74-5682-424B-B4EE-E7756C68427C@gmail.com">
{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.</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>run, ran, running,
runs</i> are all distinct words but not distinct lexemes.<br>
</p>
<p>The main reason we have words like <b>ghojmoH</b> in <i>The
Klingon Dictionary</i> is because people would want to look up
the word for <i>teach</i> 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:</p>
<p><b>ghoj</b><i> learn</i><b><br>
<i> </i>ghojmoH</b> <i>teach; </i><b>ghojwI'</b><i>
student</i></p>
<p>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.<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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