On 10/13/2020 10:11 AM, Will Martin wrote:
ngavyaw’ ghu = canine’s baby or baby of the canine = puppy
ghu ngavyaw’ = baby’s canine or canine of the baby = baby’s pet
You forget the more general genitive interpretation of the noun-noun construction. I'm not going to address this question directly, because /baby/ and /canine/ are both nouns and adjectives, and this confuses the translations. Instead, I'm going to translate an idea that deals strictly in nouns. How about a student who is a child? *ghojwI' puq*/student child /*puq ghojwI'*/child student/ Which is it? Is it a child (head noun) of the type /student/ (modifying noun)? Or is it a student (head noun) of the type /child/ (modifying noun)? It's both. Either is correct. It's a child who is a student and a student who is a child. So, completely ignoring semantics, is it *ngavyaw' ghu*/canine baby /or *ghu ngavyaw'*/baby canine /? It's both. Either is correct. It's a baby that is a canine, and it's a canine that is a baby.
*puppy* would be pronounced “poop-pee”, if it were pronounceable at all, given the lack of vowel in the second syllable, since a {y} is never a vowel in Klingon. There is no “uh” sound in Klingon, so it would be difficult to transliterate without making it easily confused with “poppy” *{papIy}*.
Qa'yIn was not proposing to transliterate the word /puppy,/ but instead keep it as a foreign word. But on transliterating /puppy:/ remember that Klingon nouns tend to place stress on the final syllable of the root noun, so *papIy* would sound like "pa-PEE." You can add a glottal stop to draw the stress: *pa'pIy*//"PA-pee." -- SuStel http://trimboli.name