[86877] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: tlhIngan porgh
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Lytle)
Thu Nov 19 22:23:35 2009
In-Reply-To: <FB78F22A-C60D-4E7D-8732-CDC986C2D6AC@alcaco.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:20:50 -0500
From: Steven Lytle <lytlesw@gmail.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 9:13 PM, ghunchu'wI' <qunchuy@alcaco.net> wrote:
> On Nov 15, 2009, at 12:28 PM, Steven Lytle wrote:
>
> > {'ay'} is not a body part.
>
>
> {porgh 'ay'} is.
>
> Or do you feel that the choice of plural is inherent in the word
> itself and not in how it is being used in context? There's some
> support for that position: The v-shaped handles of a cooking pot are
> called {DeSqIvDu'} even though they're not actually body parts.
>
> -- ghunchu'wI'
>
>
>
>
Yes, that is in fact what I think.
Words have grammatical properties that are often at odds with the logic of
the situation. I believe that this is one of those times. Gender in language
is such an example. The German "Mädchen" ('girl') is neuter (and determined
by the suffix "chen") and not the more logical feminine. In Russian many
nouns for male animate beings (i.e., usually men) are declined according to
their apparently feminine grammatical gender while governing adjectives and
verbs which are masculine. Klingon may be like this.
lay'tel SIvten
