tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 07 07:48:47 1993
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Plurals, and between
- From: (Mark E. Shoulson) [email protected]
- Subject: Plurals, and between
- Date: Sun, 5 Sep 93 13:07:09 -0400
A very quick note on some lines by Dave Sturm:
>>>From: [email protected]
>
>>>...The sentient plural `-pu'` originally meant "the whole group, all that
>there are": `tlhInganmey` = "those Klingons, some Klingons" / `tlhInganpu'` =
>"the Klingons as a whole, all the Klingons", c.f.:-
>>> [discussion of using >+pu`< in military context, and a statement that
> >+mey< can be used to give an overtone of disorderliness...]
>
> wo' ne'lI'!!
>My understanding (*please* correct me if I'm in error) is that +mey does
>indeed indicate diasporan plural if used with body parts in place of +Du'
>or with words with asimilar plurals (e.g. >pengmey< torpedoes all over the
>place, no particular firing pattern, >cha< torpedoes (fired together in
>same direction)).
>
>But wouldn't the distinction of using +mey in place of +pu' indicate
>contemptible comment as to a group's lack of tlhIngan intelligence?
No. I've seen this suggested before, but it's a confusion of two different
possibilities of "breaking" the sentient/non-sentient distinction in
Klingon.
(1) Plurals. There are sentient plurals (-pu') and non-sentient plurals
(-mey), and body-part plurals (-Du') (and, of course, anomolous plurals
(e.g. cha)). Using "-pu'" on non-sentients is generally not permitted, and
using "-mey" on body-part plurals is marked as distinctly poetic (see p.23,
Sect. 3.3.2). Using "-mey" on sentients or singulars of anomolous plurals
does *not* carry contempt, only "scattered about" (diasporan? Nice word!).
See the same page, and same paragraph. The contempt idea comes from....
(2) Possessives. We have possessives for sentient things-possessed (-wI',
-lI' -Daj, -ma', -ra', -chaj) and for non-sentient things-possessed (-wIj,
-lIj, -Daj, -maj, -raj, -chaj) (note that there's no difference in
third-person). Using the non-sentient possessives for a sentient *does*
entail contempt ("Hey, where's that *boyfriend* of yours?" -- "nuqDaq ghaH
banglIj'e'?"). The trick is not to get these confused...
~mark