tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 02 10:54:19 2001

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RE: KLBC: Grammer questions



lab Melody Jeffcoat:
>>  How many aliens wear helmets because of asteroids?
>   ghopDapmeymo' mIv lutuQ nov 'ar?

Qov: 
: I don't know for sure whether this is grammatically correct in Klingon or
: not.  The lu- prefix assigns multiple aliens to one helmet.  It's true that
: they probably only wear one helmet each (unless some aliens have multiple
: heads).  I would write tuQ, because the English was "wear helmets" not
: "wear a helmet."

Good question.  

We are told in TKD (p.70) that:

  {'ar} "how many? how much?" follows the noun to which it refers. It
  can never follow a noun with a plural suffix.
    {Haw'pu' yaS 'ar}  "How many officers fled?"
    {nIn 'ar wIghaj}   "How much fuel do we have?"

In fact, this last example is the only unambiguous example I can find as to
whether {X 'ar} is grammatically singular or plural.  Here, the prefix is {wI-}
"we [do something to] him/her/it" - note the singular object.  

Unfortunately, {nIn} is a mass noun (like {bIQtIq} "water"), so I'm not sure
that's much help.  Although English mass nouns do occasionally have plural
suffixes and are used with plural verbs - usually in archaic or poetic usages:
"by the waters of Babylon", "the sands of time", "heavens above", etc. -
Klingon mass nouns do not AFAIK.

For those who rely on Okrand's English glosses, they are ambiguous: how many
are (pl.) vs. how much is (sg.).

FWIW, my own intuition is that phrases with {'ar} would be grammatically
singular.  Thus, {mIv tuQ nov 'ar}.  

YMMV.


-- 
Voragh                       
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons


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