tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 07 08:09:06 2006
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Re: plurals
- From: McArdle <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: plurals
- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 08:08:31 -0800 (PST)
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- In-reply-to: <[email protected]>
[email protected] wrote:
>In a message dated 11/7/2006 1:31:22 AM Central Standard Time,
>[email protected] writes:
>
>> {lom} definitely is a thing, since body *parts* are only *parts* of a
>body.
>> --> -Du' does not apply.
>>
>> If I remember correctly, a corpse is dead, so cannot speak:
>> --> -pu' does not apply.
>>
>> ----> -mey is the correct plural suffix for corpses {lommey}.
>>
>> > Is lom (corpse) a body part or a thing, and would -mey carry the
>> > scattered-about connotation whn applid to it?
>>
>> Quvar.
>>
>I remember somewhere ({Hamlet}?) that corpses *do* speak.
>
IIRC that was a ghost, not a corpse, speaking (at least in the English translation; I haven't read it in the original Klingon). I don't see a word specifically for "ghost". Would {qa'} do?
Absent a word for "zombie", maybe {lom} could be used for the nasties in Night of the Living Dead, but I wouldn't dignify the sounds they made as "speech".
To take a very wide detour, the distinction between speaking and non-speaking in Klingon is reminiscent of the "gender" distinction between person and non-person in Sumerian. Humans and gods were persons, and animals (along with everything else) were non-persons. However, exceptions could be made. Slaves were often treated grammatically as non-persons, and personified animals (as in fables) as persons. Might the same be true in Klingon? Perhaps corpses that don't speak are {lommey} and those that do are {lompu'}.
Qapla'
mIq'ey
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