tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 20 16:39:07 2000
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RE: KLBC: rIn QoQ wanI'
ja' quS'a'Qob:
> ...nIteb bom vagh bompu' (wej loD, cha' be' je) DIQoy je QoywI'pu'...
> ...We also heard five soloists (three men and two women)...
It looks like the first part of the sentence is missing a few things. I'm
pretty sure you wanted {bompu'} to indicate the singers, but the noun {bom}
refers to the song. Perhaps {bomwI'pu'} is what you meant, turning the
verb {bom} "sing" into "singer" with the verb suffix {-wI'}.
If you are trying for "five singers who sang alone", you need to put the
relative clause marker {-bogh} on the first {bom} to carry the "who" idea.
nIteb bombogh vagh bomwI'pu' DIQoy je QoywI'pu'.
I don't know of any examples or explanations from Marc Okrand which tell us
that it's okay to use a noun as the subject of a sentence with a
first-person subject prefix. But I understand it fine, and I can justify
it as a degenerate form of apposition (one noun next to another as an
explanatory element with both nouns serving the same grammatical role in
the sentence), which we *do* have examples of.
Here's a great opportunity to begin a discussion on whether the plural
suffix {-pu'} is appropriate for multiple soloists, or if {-mey} makes more
sense. :-) It's not really part of the definition, but I find that I think
of {-pu'} as implying a group rather than multiple individuals. I myself
wouldn't use either suffix, since I don't want even to hint at either
concerted action (no pun intended) or scattered singers. I'd just let the
plural nature be understood from the {vagh} and the {DI-} verb prefix.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh