To be honest, I wasn’t suggesting hyphens as something outrageous. I just thought it was interesting that we use the term “noun-noun” without actually putting hyphens between the words we refer to by that name. If people want to start doing it, great. I like the idea. I just didn’t expect any traction were I to recommend it. It could even work with simple possessives, linking Proper Nouns to the nouns they posses. {SuStel-chupta’ghach vIparHa’.}
On Jan 12, 2022, at 8:00 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 1/12/2022 7:03 PM, Will Martin wrote:
We’d just as well start using hyphens. I mean, we call it a “noun-noun” construction. We don’t call it a “noun noun” construction. So why don’t we say {be’-Huch paq je} instead of {be’ Huch paq je}? Read The Lord of the Rings. That's exactly what J.R.R. Tolkien does in his style of English. Genitive nouns are hyphenated with a head noun where we, in our modern American styles, do not do so. So the suggestion is not an outrageous one. And Tolkien was not affecting some special style of writing; that was how educated Englishmen wrote in the early twentieth century.
Examples: bogey-stories, tunnel-gate, tree-trunks, forest-roof, tree-tops, wood-parsely, fire-weed, hill-top, island-shores, willow-leaves. And those are just those I happened to find in a few pages from a spot chosen randomly.
Meanwhile, I think it would be clearer to say {be’ Huch be’ paq je} than to say {be’ Huch paq je} if what you want is “The woman’s money and book”. I think it would be remarkably and dramatically more clear. Why? Because it is clearer whether it is written or spoken, and this writing system is supposed to be a representation of spoken Klingon. So, why not favor a version that would be as clear spoken as written? You can’t hear commas. Of course you can. Commas nearly always correspond to pauses in speech. But you can also include them to group words together. be'... Huch paq je the woman's money-and-book.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org