tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 19 13:44:15 2003
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: "to be" and plurals
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: "to be" and plurals
- Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 14:49:02 -0500
>From: "Sangqar (Sean Healy)" <[email protected]>
>But should you even use numbers with inherent plurals? As I recall, the
>inherent plurals refer to things considered as a single unit/group (can't
>remember where I read this); therefore using a number with them would seem
>to be a contradiction.
I don't think it's been stated anywhere by Okrand that words with plural
meanings are considered a single group. Certainly we treat them that way
grammatically, but I don't know of anything that would prevent me from
talking about /wej cha/ "three torpedoes."
wej cha yIbaH
Fire three torpedoes!
wej peng tIbaH
Fire three (scattered) torpedoes!
On the other hand, it's possible that you're correct, and that inherently
plural nouns can't be modified by numbers. This is, I think, an area we
just won't know about without information from Maltz.
SuStel
Stardate 3052.2
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus