[87852] in tlhIngan-Hol
RE: Philosophical plurals...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Boozer)
Wed Mar 3 16:37:47 2010
From: Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
To: "'tlhingan-hol@kli.org'" <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:34:52 -0600
In-Reply-To: <27a7b7f71003031228p5865a4c3wd7f3e393c8e516c3@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Quvar:
>>I do not really wish to contradict my admired Master of Ca'non, but here
>>I must. We have had this same question quite recently, and we came to
>>the result that {-pu'} only works with body-PARTS, not the body itself.
>>
>>So living or not, they are definitely {lommey}.
qurgh:
>I've always thought of -pu' as being flexible. If a speaker believes a
>noun can use language then that they would use -pu', there isn't a hard
>and fast list of nouns that can only take -pu' IMO.
>
>To me lompu' may refer to zombies or some other kind of conscious corpse.
>If I can (or think I can) converse with it, then I will use -pu' on it.
... the plural of {Qun} [god, supernatural being] is {Qunpu'} since
they are or were presumably capable of using language, which is what
the plural suffix {-pu'} implies... [st.k 7/19/1999]
Note that the word for spirit, {qa'}, takes the plural suffix {-pu'},
which is used for beings capable of using language. Spirits do
speak. [KGT 117]
--
Voragh
Canon Master of the Klingons
