On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 2:03 PM SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 2/21/2019 1:37 PM, Ed Bailey wrote:

It could be translated as "the many," just as qanwI' can be translated "the old."

Actually, I want to counter this. qanwI' can be translated the old only in the sense that plural suffixes are optional in Klingon, and qanwI'pu' means the old. Assuming no dropped plural suffix, qanwI' only means old one.

Even qanwI' singular could be translated as the old, if the speaker is generalizing. Do' DIvI' Hol wa' qech nelbe' tlhIngan ngIq mu'. nel net jalchugh, Dalqu'choH tlhIngan Hol.

TKD is fairly clear on the meaning of -wI', and it's always explained as thing which does or one who does, and even once as thing which is (we have since gotten canon for one who is). Nowhere is it explained as things which do, those who do, things which are or those who are.

I agree that it's a fine point, but I don't think it's rigid so much as careful not to stray beyond what we know -wI' does.

Again, I'm not saying that the language is necessarily this specific, just that the evidence we actually have seems to point this way. Okrand could easily clarify with, "Oh, sure, law'wI'pu' means the many," and there'd be no problem. You just can't get there with what we have now without making an assumption.

I'm with you on disliking law'wI'pu', but only because law' is inherently plural when applied to count nouns. It grates on my ear for the same reason *ngopmey would.

Simply because Okrand has described* the action of -wI' using the singular nouns one and thing does not mean he intended this syntactic marker to be incompatible with inherently plural verbs. By the same token, one could take his exact words as evidence that a verb+-wI' cannot refer to mass noun, since these are never referred to as one or thing. I do not expect he'd object to the language of TKD 3.2.2 being understood as that which does/is.

* I think "describe" is a more accurate term than "define" for how Okrand presents the Klingon language, with all that that implies.

~mIp'av