[89680] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: 'oghwI' lut
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (=?UTF-8?B?QW5kcsOpIE3DvGxsZXI=?=)
Tue Sep 13 20:20:50 2011
In-Reply-To: <C305E6BD33E2654DAE1F8F403247B6A602D46C605537@EVS02.ad.uchicago.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:10:34 +0200
From: =?UTF-8?B?QW5kcsOpIE3DvGxsZXI=?= <esperantist@gmail.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Thanks for the enlightening discussion on that topic. I've added a note
"grammatically singular and incapable of speech" to some of these words in
my database. Indeed I was thinking of the usage in some varieties of
English, where group nouns are sometimes treated like plural words. There is
some logic in both these things, so I couldn't answer this question myself.
I didn't think of {tuq} though.
2011/9/13 Steven Boozer <sboozer@uchicago.edu>
> André Müller:
> > >> But would it be qorDu'wI' or qorDu'wIj, I wonder...
>
> ghunchu'wI':
> >> I stand firmly in the {-wIj} camp. Though its members speak, the
> >> family itself does not.
>
> Voragh:
> > Again, like {tuq} -- {tuqlIj} not *{tuqlI'}:
> > pInaDqu' tuqlIj wInaDqu' je. KGT
>
> OTOH compare the collective plural {no'lI'} "your ancestors" (pl.):
>
> targhlIj yab tIn law' no'lI' Hoch yabDu' tIn puS
> Your targ has a bigger brain than all your ancestors put together! PK
>
> One's ancestors seem to be viewed like the {qa'pu'} "spirits":
>
> jIjegh ghe'torvo' narghDI' qa'pu'
> I will surrender when spirits escape from Gre'thor. KGT
>
> KGT 117: Note that the word for spirit, {qa'}, takes the plural suffix
> {-pu'}, which is used for beings capable of using language. Spirits do
> speak.
>
> ... but apparently families and houses don't, at least not in Klingon.
>
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
>
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