tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 21 20:05:47 1999
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Re: Information overload, or {Qu'vaD lI' De'vam}
>Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 20:39:19 -0500
>From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>
>pagh:
>: Daj. I don't normally think of <De'> as something that can be plural. I
>: wonder what Klingons think . . .
>
>Angela:
>>If De' is plural (which it would be in English), then how would we say it as
>>singular in tlhIngan Hol? I am willing to accept De' meaning "datum" and
>>De'pu' meaning "data". That doesn't solve what you do about its meaning as
>>"information". But it is something to think about.
>
>Your point is a valid one. However for many, if not most, native English
>speakers "data" *is* singular. It may have originally been plural in
>Latin, but to all but a few pedantic speakers (of which I am one) it is
>singular now, just like "information". What's the plural of
>"information"?
Something you have to remember is that this business of "count noun"
vs. "mass noun" isn't necessarily language-independent. In Hebrew, "water"
is *always* plural (there's no singular form for it): it construes with
verbs and adjectives in plural form, etc. Why? Because. How does Klingon
do mass/count nouns? We don't know; how could we? We're left to our own
devices.
I tend to think Klingons wouldn't worry much about this distinction. After
all, even the plural markers in Klingon are optional! So yes, "De'" could
mean both "data" and "datum", even as "paq" means "book" and "books"! I
don't think we can answer this question definitively; we simply don't have
enough data (sorry) to go on. On the other hand, I don't think it matters
much in practice.
~mark