[89705] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Redundancy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robyn Stewart)
Thu Sep 15 13:30:24 2011
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:22:38 -0700
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
From: Robyn Stewart <robyn@flyingstart.ca>
In-Reply-To: <C156260F-7C38-423D-A2E7-3DF1A6D3C03C@gmail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
It makes sense, it's only interpretable in that one way, but it feels clipped.
If you say jISop, obviously you are eating
SOMETHING but you've not specified it, so there's a no-object prefix.
If you say megh vISop you might be eating with
other people, but you haven't specified, so that's fine.
If you say megh wISop, the prefix implies a first
person plural subject, and that's fine, but I
think if you actually specify a subject, it has to agree with that prefix.
If you say megh DISop the object doesn't agree
and while one can say, well duh, obviously from
the prefix we ate something else too, gramatically it doesn't work.
megh wISop be'nalwI' is not as bad as megh DISop,
because what's missing is from the end, so
conceivably the speaker got distracted by an
enemy or something and didn't finish the
sentence, but I still get the unfinished
vibe. I'm not going to go around correcting you
if you speak that way, but I might ask,
"be'nallI' SoH je?" to make sure I hadn't missed
the other people that I should realize always eat lunch with you and your wife.
And that's what I think.
- Qov
At 10:00 15/09/2011, you wrote:
>We know that Klingons care little for
>grammatical redundancy, dropping plural suffixes
>where the prefix makes it clear that something
>is plural, etc. So, I was wondering…
>DaHjaj megh wISop be'nalwI'.
>
>Does that make sense to people? I could say,
>{DaHjaj megh wISop be'nalwI' jIH je}, but the
>{jIH je} really is grammatically redundant,
>isn't it? I mean, you know the speaker had to be
>part of it, being first person plural and all. Right?
>
>pItlh
>lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
