tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 21 22:09:57 2000
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Re: plurals (was Re: Grammar Highlight Each Day)
ja' chris <[email protected]>:
>What about such inherently plural words as scissors? pants? spectacles?
Those aren't "inherently plural" the way {cha} "torpedoes" is. In Klingon,
inherently plural nouns refer to multiple things but are treated
grammatically as singular. For example, the command
cha yIghuS "prepare the torpedoes to be fired!"
uses the verb prefix {yI-} which indicates a single object, rather than the
prefix {tI-} which is used for plural objects.
In English, words like "scissors" and "pants" refer to a single thing but
are almost always found in the plural form. We speak of "a pair of pants",
and rarely if ever use the word "scissor".
English does have "mass nouns" like "linoleum" or "shrubbery" which are
basically used as singular words referring to a quantity of something. One
never counts such nouns; we don't hear "three linoleums" (though "a
shrubbery" does appear in a Monty Python movie). These seem to parallel
Klingon's "inherent plurals" in some ways.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh