tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 07 07:48:13 1993

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Re: Two More Comments on +Du' +mey

>>This vexed me until I reread an Arabic text I had.  Arabic (like Indo-
European) once had dual *and* plural number, but still uses dual case
for body parts.  Seems then like a lifted feature, huh?<<

Arabic uses the otherwise archaic dual only for those body parts that normally
come in pairs.  I pointed  out this Arabic-like possibility in my paper in
HolQeD 1:2, asking if the Klingon body part plural was used for all plural body
parts or just those that normally come in pairs.  The question was apparently
resolved by an example on the audio tape--synchronically at least, the Klingon
body-part plural is not limited to pairs.  Historically (or "diachronically")
it may have been.

>>And even worse, doesn't +Du' seem vaguely suggestive of *DU*al?
Also, +mey isn't that far from more, in German, *MEH*r.<<

I have similarly suggested that the -Daq suffix might be an
abbreviation/corruption of Dative-Locative, the usual linguistic terms for such
a case ending.

Ken Beesley

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