[tlhIngan Hol] {'e' qa'} "instead of" with quotations

[luis.chaparro at web.de]

Thanks to all of you for your replies!

Lieven L. Litaer:

> Read full quote here:
> http://klingon.wiki/En/ThereIs

Yes, that was the quote I meant!

Voragh:

> Lieven & De'vId, is there similar confusion in colloquial or regional German between "es gibt" and "es geben"? For that matter, are there any contractions of verb forms at all? There are in Yiddish, cf. for example https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/48848424/contractions-in-yiddish[https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/48848424/contractions-in-yiddish][https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/48848424/contractions-in-yiddish[https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/48848424/contractions-in-yiddish]]

Maybe I can help here. In German there is only the form *es gibt* for *there is / are*. It's a fixed structure, where *es* is a 3rd person singular subject (but with no semantic meaning here) and therefore the verb always remains singular (*gibt*). It takes an accusative object:

*Es gibt einen neuen Film* (*There is a new movie*)
*Es gibt zwei neue Filme* (*There are two new movies*)

There are no contractions of verb forms like in English.

By the way, in Spanish there is also only one form (*hay*) for singular or plural.