Ubiquitous prescriptivism

[Mark A. Mandel]

ghItlh David Barnhart:
        >>>
  I think God must be a linguist of particularly wide-ranging philosophy.
        <<<

Natch. Any One who can make a universe like this one has got to be mighty
broad-minded.

        >>>
 By the way, are speakers of Klingon very prescriptive in their attitudes?
And, what is the size of the Klingon lexicon?
        <<<

'ej chel Ron Butters:

        >>>
 I don't know how big the Klingon vocabulary is, but I am sure that info is
readily available on the internet. No doubt one can purchase a dictionary
and introductory grammar from Barnes and Noble, complete with a CD to guide
your pronunciation.

As for language attitudes, I suspect that all Klingons are prescriptivists,
and each one is right. Criticism, however, can be dangerous.
        <<<

See _The Klingon Dictionary_ and _Klingon for the Galactic Traveler_ by Marc
Okrand, the inventor of the Klingon Language, both available at Barnes and
Noble or any good bookstore. There is also other Klingon vocabulary not in
the books, but available through the web site of the Klingon Language
Institute (http://www.kli.org/tlh/newwords.html).

The lexicon is on the order of 2500 words or roots. A rich inflectional and
derivational system, with five classes ("types") of suffix for nouns and ten
for verbs, plus a set of subject-object verbal prefixes, provides for
considerable extension, although the vocabulary is not adequate to
supporting all the needs of daily life in this universe.

As for language attitudes, I have met many Klingon-speakers and am to some
degree one myself, and I can testify that our attitudes vary considerably in
terms of prescriptivism and how much latitude we are willing to allow, both
within the rather sketchy grammar outlined in Okrand's books and in the gaps
where there is no clear guidance. I have never met any Klingons -- as far as
we are concerned in the KLI, only Dr. Okrand has direct access to Klingon
informants -- but you can take some indication from the following excerpts
from the grammar section of _The Klingon Dictionary_. The topic is the verb
suffix <-Ha'>. (Klingonists often use angle brackets instead of the standard
quotation marks because the apostrophe in Klingon transliteration is a very
common letter, representing the glottal stop. How clear would the following
be?: "-Ha'")

        >>>
As with nouns, when more than one suffix is used with a verb, they must
occur in the correct order, according to their type. No more than one suffix
of each type may occur at a time. [44]

There is one additional set of verb suffixes which Klingon grammarians call
<lengwI'mey> 'rovers' [...]. Rovers are verb suffixes which do not have a
fixed position in relation to the other suffixes following a verb but,
instead, can come just about anywhere except following a Type 9 suffix. [46]

        It is interesting that <-Ha'> always occurs right after the verb. It
is not known why Klingon grammarians insist on calling it a rover. It was
felt best not to argue with Klingon tradition, however, so <-Ha'> is here
classified as a rover. [48]
        <<<


         tlhIngan veQbeq marqem la'Hom
 Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'! -- Death to Litterbugs!
 Subcommander Markemm, Klingon Sanitation Corps
         http://mark.cracksandshards.com/
[English portions of this text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]