tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 03 13:36:56 2010

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

RE: Philosophical plurals...

Steven Boozer ([email protected])



Quvar:
>>I do not really wish to contradict my admired Master of Ca'non, but here
>>I must. We have had this same question quite recently, and we came to
>>the result that {-pu'} only works with body-PARTS, not the body itself.
>>
>>So living or not, they are definitely {lommey}.

qurgh:
>I've always thought of -pu' as being flexible. If a speaker believes a
>noun can use language then that they would use -pu', there isn't a hard 
>and fast list of nouns that can only take -pu' IMO.
>
>To me lompu' may refer to zombies or some other kind of conscious corpse.
>If I can (or think I can) converse with it, then I will use -pu' on it.


  ... the plural of {Qun} [god, supernatural being] is {Qunpu'} since
  they are or were presumably capable of using language, which is what
  the plural suffix {-pu'} implies...  [st.k 7/19/1999]

  Note that the word for spirit, {qa'}, takes the plural suffix {-pu'},
  which is used for beings capable of using language. Spirits do
  speak.  [KGT 117]



 
-- 
Voragh                          
Canon Master of the Klingons









Back to archive top level