tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 18 14:55:52 1994

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Re: KLBC: Re: Hoch, et al.



   <<<lots of stuff from lots of people about Hoch and planets deleted>>>

> 
> If you wanted to say "everyone of the planet", you'd say yuQ Hoch.  If
> you were talking about everyone on several planets, you could still say
> yuQ Hoch -- but the person speaking would need to make sure the listener
> is definitely clear that the topic of the conversation was several planets.
> If they were "switching gears", they'd need to pick it out specifically...
> ie. "yuQmey Hoch"...
> 
> In short, -mey CAN be necessary; but it depends on context.  ~mark is right,
> -mey is optional, but ONLY when the plurality is obvious to the audience;
> otherwise it's imperative that you enforce the idea of plurality.
> 
> ...Paul

Okay, you've drawn me into the argument now.  Paul's last line there, 
that it is imperative that you enforce the diea of plurality just doesn't 
ring true for me.  Not if the issue of plural vs singular isn't a 
compelling issue for the linguistic community (as it apparently is not 
for the Klingons). 

In the larger sense, Paul's comment is right on the mark, in that meaning 
depends on context, but current psycholinguistic theory says this is true 
of ALL meaning, not just potentially ambiguous ones (and if want to know 
more, have your library send for a copy of my doctoral dissertation). The 
trick is that culturally we share a great deal of infromation, what we 
might choose to call cultural overlap.  Presumably the Klingons benefit 
from a similar phenomenon.  Which might explain why some of us get so 
worked up over issues like plurality where they might just not get the 
point of all the fuss.  

Just my two cents's worth,

Lawrence

-- 


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:: The Klingon Language Institute   :: tax exempt corporation ::
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