tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 03 15:57:44 1993

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Re: tlhInganpu' / tlhInganmey



On Sep 3, 10:38am, [email protected] wrote:

>   As I wrote previously, I suspect that originally the general plural
> `-mey` was used for all nouns, and that:-
>   The body part plural `-Du'` originally meant "pair", and spread from
> natural pairs like eyes and hands to all body parts;
>   The sentient plural `-pu'` originally meant "the whole group, all that
> there are"...

     While this is an interesting philosophical jaunt, if you are interested
in the "real world" evolution of Klingon plurals, it is true that -mey was
originally the only plural suffix. Orkrand explained at Stellarcon 17 that
thanks to a blown line and a rewritten subtitle in ST3, a past tense verb
"qamapu'" which originally meant "I told you" had to become the plural noun
"prisoners". This was an after-the-fact retrofit. The line was written one
way, not quite said that way and then had to mean something entirely
different. This is also how "neH" got to mean both "only" and "want". It's in
the same line. Notice in the movie that "qamapu' jonta' neH" exists in two
different lines almost back to back and one of them comes out meaning "I
wanted prisoners" and the other means "target engines only". It's a LITTLE
more complicated than that, but that's what I can dredge up from memory.

     Anyway, Okrand had been using -mey for plurals and now, unexpectedly had
a plural ending in -pu'. He stared at it for a while and noticed that all of
his other existing (filmed) plurals were inanimate, so he decided to split
between beings capable of language and things incapable of language. He did
not explain where -du came from.

     This is a prime example of how the practical aspects of the language
being created for the movies has enriched the grammar. The vocabulary could
still use some work, though.

--   charghwI'



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