[tlhIngan Hol] inherently plural nouns when they are implied

[De'vID]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 at 16:55, D qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:

> SuStel:
> > You can substitute pronouns for nouns, and you can elide pronouns
>
> I wasn't aware of that. I thought that the thing elided was decided by
> context. So, just to see if I understand this correctly:
>
> nIHIvpu' Ha'DIbaH; DaqaDpu'mo', nIHIvpu'.
> the animals attacked you; because you provoked them they attacked you.
>
> If I understand correctly, the elided subject of {nIHIvpu'} is they/chaH,
> and *not* {Ha'DIbaHmey}, right?
>

Unless these animals are beings who can use language, the elided pronoun is
{bIH}.

See TKD section 6.2.1 on compound sentences. Even though that section is
talking about two sentences joined with a conjunction, it's equally
applicable to multiple sentences.
<When the subject of both of the joined sentences is the same, the English
translation may be reduced to a less choppy form, but Klingon does not
allow this shortening. The pronominal prefix must be used with both verbs.
[...] When a noun (as opposed to simply a verbal prefix) indicates subject
and/or object, there are some options in Klingon. In its fullest form, a
Klingon sentence repeats the noun [...] It is possible, however, to use
pronouns rather than nouns in the second of the joined sentences. [...] If
the context is clear, even the pronoun may be left out.>

So "by the book", you're first replacing the noun with a pronoun, and then
eliding the pronoun. But it's splitting hairs to insist that this isn't the
same as just eliding the noun.

-- 
De'vID
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