tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jan 20 10:11:41 2015

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] tera' Hovtay'Daq PLUTO HurDaq bIHtaH'a' latlh yuQmey?

SuStel ([email protected])



On 1/20/2015 12:54 PM, [email protected] wrote:

It’s a noun. We can’t forget that inconvenient truth. The definition is
“(noun) additional one, another one” and we keep wanting to eliminate
the word “one” from it and use it to mean “(adjective) additional, another”.

I hope this trend doesn’t succeed and we start acquiring a new kind of
chuvmey that precedes a noun and acts like an adjective. We already have
{Hoch} being treated like this as often as not, and numbers, of course...

It looks like Okrand forgot that inconvenient truth long ago.

S31    Hegh bey    Death Howl

HeghDI' tlhIngan SuvwI' pagh tlhIngan SuvwI' HoHlu'DI' Heghtay lulop latlh tlhInganpu'. Heghtay luloptaHvIS chaH chaq bey SeQ lujach. Heghpu'bogh tlhIngan mInDu' lupoSmoHlu'. beyHom bey bey'a' jachtaH latlh tlhInganpu'. yay 'oS bey. 'IQ pagh. Heghpu'bogh latlhpu' ghuHmoH bey. ghoS tlhIngan SuvwI' maq.

When a Klingon warrior dies or is killed, other Klingons may perform a ceremonial howl or yell as part of the Klingon death ritual. The eyes of the fallen Klingon are opened and others roar in great crescendo. This yell is victorious in nature, rather than mournful and also serves to warn the other dead that a Klingon warrior is coming.


KGT:
latlh HIvje'Daq 'Iw HIq bIr yIqang!
Pour the cold bloodwine into another glass!

(Yes, you could claim that it's actually "someone else's glass," but there's no evidence that this is the case.)


I think the moral of this story is that some nouns can modify other nouns in a very adjectival way, and still be nouns.

In fact, I would guess that the difference between {latlh tlhIngan} and {latlh tlhInganpu'} is the same as the difference between {Hoch tlhIngan} and {Hoch tlhInganpu'}: the former is used to speak of each Klingon individually, while the latter is used to speak of all the Klingons as a whole. So {latlh tlhIngan} "each additional Klingon" and {latlh tlhInganpu'} "all additional Klingons."

--
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/

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