tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 16 00:58:01 2002
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Re: "be'be'" - double negation
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: "be'be'" - double negation
- Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 00:21:54 EDT
Will wrote:
> Well, technically, the difference between nouns made plural by {-mey},
{-Du'}
> and {-pu'} is that of gender. Gender is not, in all languages, sexual.
> Similarly, the difference between nouns modified by {-ma'} or {-maj} is
gender.
> Klingon simply determines gender in a more logical way than many languages
do.
Good point. However, I'd make a small addition: Klingon's genders (also more
accurately called noun classes) are logical in the sense that the meaning of
the word determines its class. But the genders of French words (to use an
example I'm familiar with) are logical in another way: the word itself tells
you what the class is. I don't have to know that "chat" means cat to know
that the word needs masculine adjectives and pronouns, because it has the
form of a masculine noun. I would also know that "chatte" was its feminine
form, again without having to know that it meant a female cat. (Of course,
there are exceptions to the regular formations of the masculine and feminine,
but not _too_ many.) If I just saw the word "tlhon" and wasn't sure what it
meant, I'd be clueless as to what plural marker it needed.
For "chat"/"chatte", the genders of the words are predictable by logic _and_
by the sounds of the words, which is generally not true in French. I wonder
if there are many languages where the word classes always behave this way.
Perhaps Swahili? Does anyone know?
-Sengval