tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Sep 28 03:55:22 2005
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: ta
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: ta
- Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 20:55:00 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Voragh, ja':
>Gender!? Surely you meant number or possessive suffixes? Or are you using
>"gender" to refer to the basic person vs. thing distinction in Klingon
>grammar -- "sentience" perhaps?
jangpu' ghunchu'wI', ja':
>Gender is exactly the right word. Look it up -- its primary meaning is a
>grammatical one. It refers to subclassifying words using criteria that
>are usually based on measureable qualities (like social status or sex) but
>also sometimes for arbitrary reasons. Gender determines which variant of
>other words or modifiers are required.
Exactly what I was trying to get at (but much better put). The only reason
we English-speakers tend to call it "gender" is that in many European
languages, the gender division frequently corresponds to real-world gender.
That's the case in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Greek and Irish, just
to name a few.
ja'taH:
>Klingon has two different kinds of gender: "people" vs. "things" for
>possessive suffixes, and "people" vs. "body parts" vs. "other" for
>plurals.
>The notable thing here is that Klingon plural gender seems to apply to the
>word itself, and not to what the word refers to. {Ho'} gets {- Du'} even
>when used to label people, and {DeSqIv} gets {-Du'} even when it's applied
>to pot handles.
Again, you've put it much better than I was able to. qatlho'.
Savan,
QeS la'
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
_________________________________________________________________
SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site.
http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail