tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 27 17:19:52 1997

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RE: KLBC: "tu'lu'" with plurals

jatlh qoror:

> ghItlh SuStel:
> >> Talking of leaving out {lu-}, what do people think of {mIch 'elpu'
> > jay'!}, glossed as `They've entered the #$%@ sector!' (_tKD:178_)?
> 
> Qaghqa'ba' Okrand.<
> 
> Of course, I've never heard of a vessel in Star Trek with just one person.  
If a
> ship's entering a sector causes enough discomfort that the speaker uses 
"-jay',"
> then it's probably more then one person and it's just context that tells the
> person.  (I agree, though, that it's ungrammatical.  It could be Clipped 
Klingon
> [witness "So'wI' chu'ta'," among others].)

Actually, this makes me consider: Okrand *might* have been considering the 
ship which was entering the sector, and not the crew aboard.  Then, his lack 
of a prefix would be correct.  We say "they," but we aren't really talking 
about multiple people, but the ship.  This is a bit of a stretch, though.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97237.6

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