tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 18 23:19:27 1994
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plurality of everything
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Thu, 19 May 94 01:01:07 EDT
>> Reply to: RE>>plurality of everything
>>jatlh charghwI':
>>>I suggest that the rule in TKD 3.3.2, page 24 should
>>>take care of this. "Inherently plural nouns are treated
>>>grammatically as singular nouns in that singular pronouns are
>>>used to refer to them..." I vote for {Hoch luSov...}
>>Hmm, interesting. This seems reasonable, but it leaves me
>>rather puzzled about a sentence I wrote a couple of days ago:
>>chaq mu'ghommeymajDaq 'Iw wIchaghnIS Hoch .
>>If Hoch is singular, then wIchaghnIS is incorrect. But it doesn't
>>make sense to try to say "We all should ..." without using a first
>>person plural prefix, right? "vIchaghnIS Hoch" is nonsense! On
>>the other hand, I was a little uneasy about the apposition of the
>>subject in this sentence anyway. How would you say "We all" as
>>a subject?
>>--nachHegh
>>[email protected]
>The qualification of personal pronouns in Klingon (e.g., "some of us", "all
>of you", "a lot of them") has been something I could never really fully
>accept. It just seemed that {maH Hoch} didn't fit into the "noun-noun
>construction" category since then it'd have to be {Hochmaj}, which some
>prefer, but that seems too English to me.
>I'm willing now to go with {maH Hoch}, in which {Hoch} is used as it is in
>many other constructions like {HoD Hoch} or {'Iw Hoch}. I know Okrand used
>{Hoch} in this way on PK, (I can't remember the specific example), but I
>don't know how {Hoch} is considered grammatically. Not really an adjectival,
>probably closer to a noun. That's OK. Languages often solve semantic
>limitations by idiomatic grammar.
The example is in PK, I think; "targhlIj yab tIn law', no'lI' yab Hoch tIn
puS" (your targ has a bigger brain than all your ancestors put together).
I don't see how you can justify "*maH Hoch" by those parallels. The ones
we have, near as anyone can tell, are just genitive constructions,
run-of-the-mill (the captains' all, etc). Pronouns don't form
possessives/genitives like that; that's why Kahless created "-maj/ma'" etc.
(before someone starts: I'm not postulating some myth about Kahless being
the inventor of tlhIngan Hol; I'm just making a weak joke by reconstructing
"God knows"/etc.).
>In {'Iw wIchaghnIS Hoch}, it looks to me like {Hoch} is modifying an implicit
>{maH}, since of course all pronouns used as a subject or object can be left
>out. In fact, most often pronouns are only used for emphasis, clarity, or if
>followed by a Type 5 suffix. So that little clause is imesho perfectly fine
>as far as the prefix goes.
Yeah, but the only ways nouns can modify nouns that we know about are by
genitive constructs, possibly apposition, and suffixes like "-vo'" and
"-vaD". I suppose "*maH Hoch" could be apposition,...
>Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
~mark