tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 14 04:36:20 2013
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Greetings from Maltz
Qov:
>> I'm fascinated by the fact that Klingon seems to have done it
>> on its
> own without Mark planning it into the language. Maybe
>> t's just something
> that languages do.
QeS 'utlh:
> Possibly, though I'm pretty much convinced that Marc likely planned it all along: he's actually been entirely consistent with his use of {tu'lu'} in canon, and it appears with explicitly plural objects in TKD, PK, SP2, KCD, KGT and BoP.
>
> Conversely, I'm not aware of a single canon example of {lutu'lu'}. Which is now making me rethink whether I should use it with the "there are" meaning at all. Upon rereading, the TKD paragraph on the construction seems pretty explicit that the "there is" meaning is associated with a null prefix.
Fascinating!
TKD p.39 says:
<When used with the verb {tu'} "find, observe" and a third-person
singular subject prefix (0), the resulting verb form {tu'lu'}
"someone/something finds it" is often translated by English "there
is."
{naDev puqpu' tu'lu'} "there are children around here,
someone/something finds children here">
The explanation of {tu'lu'} explicitly calls out the use of the
third-person singular prefix, and every sentence in TKD with {tu'lu'}
leaves out the {lu-} when the object is plural. I can't find a single
canon example with {lutu'lu'} either.
And in KGT, {tu'lu'} is explicitly glossed as "there are" (p.126):
<For example, referring to a situation, one might say {naDev cha'maH
cha' joQDu' tu'lu'} ("There are twenty-two ribs here"; {naDev,}
"here"; {tu'lu',} "there is/are") -- that is, there is something out
of the ordinary going on, even if no one can say exactly what.>
And as loghaD mentioned, pp.168-172 go into detail about when {lu-} is dropped.
So it does seem that it was always intended for {tu'lu'} to mean
"there is/are", even if the object is plural.
toH. I was wrong. MO and Maltz are using "textbook grammar".
--
De'vID
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