[tlhIngan Hol] numbers and inherently plural nouns

[Will Martin]

why use {‘oH} if {ghot} is plural?

Sent from my iPhone. 

> On Sep 2, 2020, at 7:16 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 9/2/2020 5:16 PM, Will Martin wrote:
>> I think a lot of it can simply be a matter of personal writing (or speaking) “style”. If you ALWAYS use the plural suffix on any plural noun, that speaks loudly in terms of your intentional style, and it’s likely exceptional from the general norm. Similarly, if you always omit the plural suffixes, you are similarly adhering to a style that is probably exceptional.
> I'm not talking about whether or not you USE the suffixes, only whether Klingons think of suffixes FIRST when confronted with the concept of plural.
> 
> TKD presents a bunch of examples.
> 
> yaS vImojpu' means only I became an officer because context rules out me becoming multiple officers.
> 
> yaS DImojpu' means only We became officers because the pronomial prefix AND context rule out us becoming a single officer.
> 
> yaS jIH means only I am an officer because the pronoun AND context rule out me becoming multiple officers.
> 
> yaS maH means only We become officers because the pronoun AND context rule out us becoming a single officer.
> 
> But when we get to yaS mojpu' we have to resort to external context. gheSmeH tayvaD paw jav yaS. rInDI' tay, yaS mojpu'. Now we have context, and we know that it means They became officers.
> 
> 
> 
>> I don’t think it’s ever wrong to omit the plural suffix or to use it, for any specific utterance, though it can be confusing or vague in some cases to omit it, and just seems somewhat chatty and excessive to always use it.
> I'm not saying it is. It explicitly isn't. "Fortunately for students of Klingon, it is never incorrect to add a plural suffix to a noun referring to more than one entity, even in those cases where it is unnecessary to do so." I'm simply wondering whether Klingons may think of plural suffixes as optional to ADD to nouns rather than as optional to REMOVE.
> 
> 
> 
>> The revelation for me, given what you posted just now, is that it might actually be allowable and useful to use plural suffixes with plural/collective nouns. Consider:
>> 
>> ray’pu’
>> ray’mey
>> ray’Du’
>> 
>> In one word, you tell whether you are aiming at people, more specifically at certain body parts, or maybe just their ships.
> No, these words don't take these suffixes, or at least TKD says they never do. I'm not sure why what I posted led you here, since I wasn't talking about this.
> 
> 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!
> 
> (And notice that context tells us that ghotvetlh'e' must also be plural because one person usually can't be multiple targets.)
> 
> I daresay in most cases you'll have some context as to what your multiple targets are, and it won't be necessary to ask grammatical gender to distinguish this for you.
> 
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
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