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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/29/2016 10:13 AM, De'vID wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CA+7zAmNawu9eMSCPytsiBbM+sLDT9kQYmMdWjPiwVmCi1qdVTQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 29 December 2016 at 16:05, Lawrence M.
Schoen <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:klingonguy@gmail.com" target="_blank">klingonguy@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div>Readers of Schoen's fiction ask if elephants can really
talk.<br>
<br>
Translate any of the above or similar statements into
Klingon and the group is clearly understood to be made up
of language users and no one would blink twice at the
figurative use of extending that attribute to the group.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the case of something like "readers", they're clearly
{laDwI'pu'} and it's not just metaphorical. They're literally
beings capable of language.</div>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<p>Klingon has a few interesting cases where English uses a
group-word while Klingon just uses a plural word. The one that
occurs to me immediately is <b>mebpa'mey</b> <i>hotel.</i>
Grammatically in Klingon, this is just the plural of the word <b>mebpa',</b>
and is not a separate group-word. You could not, for instance,
call a major hotel a <b>*mebpa'mey'a'.</b> You could, however,
say <b>mebpa'mey qach'a'</b> <i>great building of guest-rooms.</i>
With the extra information you could even leave off the
now-unneeded plural suffix, for <b>mebpa' qach'a'.</b><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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