tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 07 15:53:13 1999
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Re: Dreaming in Klingon
ja' Lawrence:
>How would you refer to a person -- say for example, your captain -- if that
>person was dead? Would you use -wI' or -wIj?
>
>If you take the position that the captain was capable of speech while
>alive, and that such an attribute should be considered permanent once
>applied, then you'd go with -wI'.
I agree with this position completely. I'd also like to point out that
Klingon has a lack of focus on tense, so the idea of "capable of speech"
*should* be a permanent attribute. Note that babies are supposed to get
the speaking possessives because of their potential to speak; dead people
would likely be treated the same.
>But if you go with the comment established in TNG that a lifeless body is
>just a shell and possesses nothing of the original owner, then I imagine
>you'd use -wIj, with no insult implied to your captain, because here's not
>there any more, that's just his body.
But you're not talking about the captain anymore. You're talking about
his corpse. Body parts deserve the non-speaking possessive even when the
person they belong to is alive.
I don't make the distinction between living and dead. I make it between
the person and the body. If you say {HoD}, it's got to be {HoDwI'}.
-- ghunchu'wI'