<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">why use {‘oH} if {ghot} is plural?<br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone. </div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Sep 2, 2020, at 7:16 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/2/2020 5:16 PM, Will Martin wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:790DC16E-2F86-4323-A6E2-8A94617764D2@mac.com">
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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.</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>TKD presents a bunch of examples.</p>
<p><b>yaS vImojpu'</b><i> </i>means only <i>I became an officer</i>
because context rules out me becoming multiple officers.</p>
<p><b>yaS DImojpu'</b> means only <i>We became officers</i> because
the pronomial prefix AND context rule out us becoming a single
officer.</p>
<p><b>yaS jIH</b> means only <i>I am an officer</i> because the
pronoun AND context rule out me becoming multiple officers.</p>
<p><b>yaS maH</b> means only <i>We become officers</i> because the
pronoun AND context rule out us becoming a single officer.</p>
<p>But when we get to <b>yaS mojpu'</b> we have to resort to
external context. <b>gheSmeH tayvaD paw jav yaS. rInDI' tay, yaS
mojpu'.</b> Now we have context, and we know that it means <i>They
became officers.</i></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:790DC16E-2F86-4323-A6E2-8A94617764D2@mac.com">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.</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:790DC16E-2F86-4323-A6E2-8A94617764D2@mac.com">
<div class="">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:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">ray’pu’</div>
<div class="">ray’mey</div>
<div class="">ray’Du’</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">In one word, you tell whether you are aiming at
people, more specifically at certain body parts, or maybe just
their ships.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><b>ray'lIj 'oH ghotvetlh'e'. ray'Daq yIbach!</b></p>
<p>(And notice that context tells us that <b>ghotvetlh'e'</b> must
also be plural because one person usually can't be multiple
targets.)<br>
<b></b></p>
<p>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.</p>
<br>
<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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