tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 21 08:34:14 1995
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Re: jIlIH(')egh, etc.
>Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 06:29:11 -0800
>From: "Christian Matzke" <[email protected]>
>Similar question: what plural suffix should be used on qa' (spirit)?
>qa'pu' fits with the Klingon idea that the body is merely a shell,
>while the true person is the spirit.
>qa'Du' works since the spirit is part of the person.
>qa'mey seems as wrong IMO. Anyone else have a suggestion?
I have consistently considered "qa'" as sentient, using "qa'wI'" in Jonah
and in Hamlet, along with qa'pu', etc. To me, it's the "speaking" part of
a person. It's what makes someone a sentient being.
The bottom line is that this is a borderline case, on which people can
disagree. It's often the case in a language that makes a distinction like
this that people will find situations in which either applies, depending on
the point they wish to make (a not exactly similar situation happens in
English, when we might call a female cat "it" or "she" depending on who's
talking and what the situation is; whether or not we want to draw attention
to her sex, etc).
I recall we had a similar argument on this list once about qorDu', which I
tended to consider non-sentient (qorDu'wIj), since it's a collective that
rarely speaks in one voice or anything (though if I were talking of a
clan's political weight or opinion I might change that), and some other
people considered it to be "qorDu'wI'", since a family speaks, albeit with
the many voices of its members.
~mark