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?

A similar word is DeghwI' helmsman, which makes one really want to translate Degh as helm (v), but we have no such word. Likewise, De'wI' computer makes one want to translate De' as compute (v), but we also have no such word.

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.

I wonder if the Old Klingon text in paq'batlh has any illuminating examples of such words. This would be an interesting philological study...

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name