[89663] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: 'oghwI' lut
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI' 'utlh)
Tue Sep 13 13:56:55 2011
In-Reply-To: <CABDLMbUWHZgrG1NA=_pjYefAcJ=UWpRCxH75w9Nf3Xe8-LLb0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:35:11 -0400
From: "ghunchu'wI' 'utlh" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 12:53 PM, André Müller <esperantist@gmail.com> wrote:
> I always had issues with the word qorDu' (family). Is it grammatically
> singular or plural? Is it regarded as "capable of using speech" or not?
> I just found we have a sentence:
>
> qaStaHvIS wa'maH puq poHmey, wo'rIv betleH ghaj qorDu'Daj.
> Worf's bat'leth has been in his family for ten generations.
>
> So qorDu' seems to act as a singular noun in syntax, otherwise it'd have to
> have been lughaj.
Right. In Klingon, a collective noun like "group" is grammatically
singular. This differs from what I think of as British usage, where
one hears things like "the team are excited."
> But would it be qorDu'wI' or qorDu'wIj, I wonder...
I stand firmly in the {-wIj} camp. Though its members speak, the
family itself does not.
-- ghunchu'wI'
