[tlhIngan Hol] numbers and inherently plural nouns

Alan Anderson qunchuy at alcaco.net
Wed Sep 2 20:47:56 PDT 2020


On Sep 2, 2020, at 7:16 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> If you want to distinguish speaking targets from body-part targets from other targets, you need to do so by description. The grammar won't do it for you.
> 
> ray'lIj 'oH ghotvetlh'e'. ray'Daq yIbach!
> 

The grammar of that sentence is doing it just fine. It is clearly indicating, in multiple ways, that the target is not a being capable of speech. It is very jarring for me to see {ghot} as the subject of such a sentence.

It’s also weird to try to reconcile the singular pronoun with the claimed implication that it refers to a plural entity, but inherent plurals are weird in general when one tries to mix them with explicitly plural ideas.

-- ghunchu'wI'
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