tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 20 16:21:59 2003
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Re: "to be" and plurals
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: "to be" and plurals
- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:25:03 -0500
>From: Quvar valer <[email protected]>
>
> >> wej cha yIbaH
> >> Fire three torpedoes!
> >>
> >> wej peng tIbaH
> >> Fire three (scattered) torpedoes!
>
>some phrases with numbers:
> {wa' DoS neH yIbuS.}
> "Focus on but one target." (TKW)
>
>KGT p105:
> {wa' DoS wIqIp}
> "we hit one target"
> (idiom: "we agree")
>
> {cha' DoSmey DIqIp}
> "we hit two (scattered) targets"
> (idiom: "we disagree")
Do'Ha' nujangbe' mu'tlheghmeyvam.
>DloraH:
> >Would they be scattered without the -mey?
>
>I think not. TKD tells us that
><<<<<<
>The singular forms may take the {-mey} suffix, but the meaning always
>carries the "scattered all about''
>connotation:
> {DoSmey} "targets scattered all about"
> {pengmey} "torpedoes all over the place"
The question here is if /peng/ is made plural, does it mean "scattered
about"? I wrote /wej peng tIbaH/, not /wej pengmey tIbaH/, but it's not
clear whether there's really a difference between the two. It might be
interesting if we learned that /wej peng tIbaH/ meant "Fire three
torpedoes!" and /wej pengmey tIbaH/ meant "Fire three scattered torpedoes!"
But we don't know anything about it.
SuStel
Stardate 3055.3
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