tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 22 12:25:32 1998
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chuyDaH+mey (was Re: Problem Words)
>> >...So, what happens when you
>> >say {loS chuyDaH}? loS chuyDaH wItoghchugh... It looks pretty
>> >weird where I'm sitting. I want to see {loS X DItoghchugh...}. I
>> >guess I need to adjust my reflexes to suit the rules.
>>
>> I don't see a problem here at all. A {chuyDaH} is a collection of
>> thrusters. Four of them would be...four collections of thrusters.
>
>In English, while people generally misuse the term "battery", if
>used according to the way God made the word, two batteries
>should instead be referred to as one battery, just perhaps twice
>as big as the "single" battery because a battery is, by
>definition, a collection, and two of them just makes one bigger
>collection.
I am very aware of this misuse, and I do try to call an electrochemical
cell a "cell" when I can do it without seeming too geeky. But consider
a nine-volt battery -- two of them are two separate batteries, each made
of six connected cells in a rectangular case.
>Similarly, if you have 64MB to your system RAM, you don't get
>two system RAMs. You just get one bigger collection of system
>RAM.
But if you have a 32M SIMM and another 32M SIMM, you have two SIMMs.
Main memory and cache memory are both collections of RAM, but they
are two separate collections. I can make similar arguments for just
about any objection to not combining multiple collections into one.
>> Putting a plural suffix on {chuyDaH} might not *have* to carry a
>> "scattered" implication; it just means that the thrusters being
>> counted don't all act in concert the way a "thruster bank" does.
>
>Okrand never said that adding {-mey} to {chuyDaH} would refer to
>"scattered all about". He said that adding {-mey} to {vIj} meant
>"scattered all about".
True, but that doesn't address my suggestion. I never said anything
to contradict Okrand; I just proposed that adding a plural suffix where
we don't expect it might not always do the same thing as in other cases
where an unexpected {-mey} implies the "scattered" idea.
>He didn't mention adding {-mey} to
>{chuyDaH} AT ALL. So far as the rules go for plurals, there is
>NEVER a time when you add a plural suffix to {chuyDaH}. It is
>already plural. It doesn't get MORE plural as you add more of
>them. It just stays grammatically singular, with a plural
>meaning.
>
>Read the book.
>
>[Okay. I'm pausing. Breathe slowly.]
You're right, of course. TKD says so at the bottom of page 23:
"Finally, some nouns in Klingon are inherently or always plural in
meaning, and therefore never take plural suffixes." However, TKD
also says other things that are contradicted by examples. I am
willing to consider a repluralized {chuyDaHmey}, mostly because of
the syllable {DaH} in it, which we have seen translated in isolation
to mean "bank" or "array". If a {chuyDaH} is something like the
"thruster cluster" installed on contemporary spacecraft, then it's
perfectly reasonable to consider plural clusters.
>You speak as if you are completely confident that there is no
>problem here. Meanwhile, by making this statement, you are
>creating grammar Okrand never alluded to.
I'm not completely confident that my interpretation is correct, but
I have no problem applying it to what we see. Thus I don't see any
difficulty implied by the existence of {loS chuyDaH} at all. I won't
actually use {chuyDaHmey} in anything I write, because of the obvious
possibility that TKD's "never" doesn't have an exception here, but I
will understand it without trouble if anyone else writes it.
>Unless Okrand expands
>on an explanation somewhere, you should never see the words
>{Hochmey, chuyDaHmey, chamey} etc. They never get plural
>suffixes.
Meanwhile, unless Okrand expands on an explanation somewhere, we should
never see the second verb of a sentence as object carrying an aspect
suffix. Yet we do see them, in multiple places.
Skybox card S25, {tlhIngan vaS'a'}:
...yejquv DevwI' moj ghawran 'e' wuqta' cho' 'oDwI'
Dapu'bogh janluq pIqarD HoD.
Skybox card S26, {lurSa' be'etor je}:
DuraS tuq tlhIngan yejquv patlh luDub 'e' reH lunIDtaH
DuraS be'nI'pu'...
When TKD says "never", it isn't always right. I don't see a problem
with {loS chuyDaH} implying that TKD is incomplete or inconsistent,
since we already know things TKD fails to explain or even gets wrong.
>Upon further reflection, do you choose to disagree with this
>observation? If so, please point out either the section of TKD
>that I missed or the canon example which shows my observation to
>be incorrect. I point you to the section on plurals to show you
>that your statement about adding {-mey} to {chuyDaH} has
>anything to do with being scattered all about, and I suggest
>that your inaccuracy extends far beyond that most obvious one.
I point you back at my musings on {chuyDaH} and {-mey} to show you that
my point was that it *didn't* have to carry the scattered idea one might
expect from the other rules about an unexpected {-mey}.
-- ghunchu'wI'