tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 09 08:15:21 1998
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Re: Phantom words in KGT
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Phantom words in KGT
- Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 10:04:44 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Anderson <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, January 08, 1998 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: Phantom words in KGT
[mebpa'mey]
>I wonder about this word. It's got a {-mey} on it, but it's defined as
>a singular "hotel". Is it an inherently plural noun that is grammatically
>treated as singular?
Looks to me like it should be taken as-is. The translation "hotel" is a
convenient noun that exists in English, but apparently Klingon has no unique
word for a collection of guest rooms. It is rather like talking about a
professor's "rooms": you mean his apartment, but you refer to the collection
of rooms instead of using a singular noun. However, "rooms" isn't a
singular noun, "The professor's rooms are cluttered," not "The professor's
rooms is cluttered." (For some reason, using "rooms" like this always
conjures up images of academia, but I don't know what the true limitations
of the word may be.)
I guess that {mebpa'mey} works the same way. You could talk about a single
{mebpa'} or plural {mebpa'mey}, but there's no unique noun to describe the
collection of these rooms, a hotel.
veng wa'DIchDaq pawDI' tera'ngan, mebpa'mey nejchoH.
mebpa'meyDaq Dor QaHqangbogh tlhIngan.
lam mebpa'mey Say'moHbogh nuvpu''e'.
mebpa'mey Dab ghewmey.
mebpa' neHbe' tera'ngan 'e' wuq.
jatlh tera'ngan QongmeH Hur qaq law' mebpa'meyvam qaq puS!
SuStel
Stardate 98025.0