I think a good example from linguistics is using -er and -ee as productive suffixes when talking about agents and patients of actions. The suffixes are known from words like "employer" and "employee", but in linguistics there are also the causer and the causee, even the asker and the askee. At least the latter is a nonce word, immediately understood in context, but perhaps only marginally grammatical. The suffix is made more productive, in this way. Or of course things like "nouniness" and "verbiness" when talking about word classes and how well certain words fit into such a class.

Klingon {-ghach} in scientific jargon might work similarly. Perhaps Klingon linguists speak of {"neH" chuvghach} ~ the rest-ness of the verb "neH" or similar.

- André

2017-02-14 16:41 GMT+01:00 SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name>:

It's not that -ghach occurs on bare stems in scientific jargon; it's that a scientist trying to explain something arcane that doesn't already have a word might throw -ghach on a bare verb to make a point. You're coining a word of the moment, not finding it in a textbook.

Basically, the effect of -ghach on a bare verb is the same as putting scare-quotes around a word you just made up.