tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 04 14:03:38 2001
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: A little Poetry
- From: Eric Andeen <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: A little Poetry
- Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 11:01:51 -0700
charghwI':
>>>juH vIyItlaHbe'. jIleghchu'be'. SoHpu' vIleghlaH.
ghunchu'wI':
>> I tried pluralizing {SoH} once in what I thought was an appropriate
>> context, addressing the comment to someone who I'd expect to have
>> understood it. She didn't understand it, perhaps because {SoHpu'}
>> wants very much to be interpreted as a "to be" verb having a
>> perfective suffix.
DloraH:
> But in this sentence the pronoun is placed in a noun position;
> there is already a verb in the sentence. (It is certainly
> unusual usage tho.)
>> {SoHmey} seems somehow more appropriate for your example anyway. :-)
> But they are most likely not scattered about. All of him would
> probably be close together, next to each other.
As much as I enjoy clever wordplay, I just can't rationalize this. <SoHpu'
vIleghlaH>, even in this context, sounds like an extremely drunk or confused
foreigner. One problem is that, unlike English, <SoH> already has a plural -
<tlhIH>. I realize that you're going for something different, but the
existence of <tlhIH> makes plurals on pronouns very marked, and since <-pu'>
is also a verb suffix as well, it's just too weird. There's also the issue
of the prefix, which I think has to be <qa->. That makes the plural suffix
sound even weirder, since I would half expect <Sa-> instead of <qa->.
<cha' SoH qalegh> might work. It also has the prefix problem, but it doesn't
seem so bad. <cha'logh qalegh> is even better.
pagh