tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jan 22 11:38:46 2003
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Re: "to be" and plurals
ghItlh SuStel:
>"Most of his family are officers."
>"Some of his ancestors are officers."
>
>You MIGHT get away with "is" instead of "are" in the first of these
>sentences, but it would sound funny to a lot of people.
I agree.
>The oddity here is that, grammatically, /no'/ "ancestors" is singular, but
>its meaning is plural. So do we follow the meaning or the grammar?
grammar potlh law', Hoch potlh puS! ;-)
>Given the "officers" idea above, I would tend toward:
>
>yaSpu' chaH no'chaj'e'
>"His ancestors were officers"
Sounds correct. But it seems to violate the rule.
But {yaSpu' ghaH} seems to be wrong too: "HE are plural??"
{yaS ghaH no''e'} looks better, but it's still weird with this inherently plural thing.
I prefer this:
{yaSpu' chaH qempa'Daj'e'}
"His ancestors are officers"
>/'op no'Daj/ is a noun phrase, and the pronoun refers to it. But /'op
>no'Daj/ would seem to refer to "ancestors," not a "group of ancestors."
I've never been comfortable with the use of the word {'op}
>>Quvar.
>>DIDabe'lu'ba'; DIDataHbe'!
>
>mu'meyvam vIyajbe'. Hatba' <DIDabe'lu'ba'>: tay'laHbe' <DI-> <-lu'> je.
bIlugh jay'! baQa', jIbachHa'. {wI-} moHaq vIlo'nISbej.
>mu'tlhegh yIQIj!
potlhbe' mu'tlhegh qech, potlh wabDaj! bom vIchenmoHtaHbogh 'ay' 'oH.
tera' bom qan rur mu'tlheghvam wab'e'. chaq Daghov.
Quvar.
wIDabe'lu'ba'; wIDataHbe'!