tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 17 07:25:43 1994
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Re: KLBC: Re: Hoch, et al.
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Sun, 16 Oct 94 22:20:58 EDT
>According to Terry Donnelly:
>>
>> In the beating-a-dead-horse department:
>> But one question: if {Hoch} comes last in a N-N construction to mean "all
>> (of)", shouldn't the first noun be plural? Does {yuQ Hoch} = "the entire
>> planet" and {yuQmey Hoch} = "all the planets"?
>>
>> - Terry
>I think you have a good point here. While in many cases when
>plurality is grammatically clear through other devices, the
>plural suffix is unnecessary, in this case the presence or
>absence of a plural suffix makes a significant difference in
>the meaning of the word pair. I would tend to agree with your
>two examples stated here.
Actually, I wouldn't. "yuQ" is, indeed, plural, since plurals don't need
to be marked in Klingon. What's more, "yuQ Hoch" does imply "all the
planets" with reeasonable unambiguity, since for "the whole planet" one
would use "yuQ naQ". Sure, yuQmey Hoch is okay, but hardly necessary.
>charghwI'
~mark