Do we have any evidence in canon to support the use of verb prefixes referring to a plural subject or object, with the persons composing the plural subject or object being explicitly stated and only matching the person indicated by the verb prefix when considered as a group, but not individually? For example: meq Daj wIrIchtaH be'nalwI' jIH je. SughoH'a' SoH jIllI' je? loDnI'lI' jIH je ghomuv! I’ve always taken it for granted that one could say things like the above, but I realized recently that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever actually seen it done. If there isn’t any evidence to support breaking out the members of a plural person indicated by a verb prefix the way it’s done in the above examples, does anybody have any suggestions on how to do it? The usual answer would seem to be “split it into multiple sentences”, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to do that in a grammatically sound way without necessarily adding more context to fill in a missing verb slot, e.g.: muvuQ meq Daj. be'nalwI' vuQ je. wIrIchtaH. jIllI' DaQeHmoHlaw'pu'. SughoH'a'? qaloS. DuloS je loDnI'lI'. ghomuv! I suppose that something like {meq Daj wIrIchtaH. be'nalwI' jIH je maH.} might also be possible, but it really doesn’t sit right with me.
On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 at 15:16, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
Do we have any evidence in canon to support the use of verb prefixes referring to a plural subject or object, with the persons composing the plural subject or object being explicitly stated and only matching the person indicated by the verb prefix when considered as a group, but not individually? For example:
{DuraS tuq tlhIngan yejquv patlh luDub 'e' reH lunIDtaH DuraS be'nI'pu' lurSa' be'etor je.} (SkyBox 26) {Qu' DataghDI' 'aqtu' mellota' je tIqaw.} (TKW p.187) -- De'vID
On Jun 22, 2019, at 09:39, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
{Qu' DataghDI' 'aqtu' mellota' je tIqaw.} (TKW p.187)
'aqtu' mellota' je vIlIjlaw'pu'! Okay, seems pretty clear that multiple {ghaH}s can be considered to be {chaH} for the purposes of {moHaq rom}, which makes me feel better about my initial assumption. It would still be interesting to see examples where there is disagreement between whether the prefix and at least some of the people it refers to are first/second/third person, if they exist, since the examples you cited were both third person all around.
On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 at 17:29, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
On Jun 22, 2019, at 09:39, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
{Qu' DataghDI' 'aqtu' mellota' je tIqaw.} (TKW p.187)
'aqtu' mellota' je vIlIjlaw'pu'!
Okay, seems pretty clear that multiple {ghaH}s can be considered to be {chaH} for the purposes of {moHaq rom}, which makes me feel better about my initial assumption. It would still be interesting to see examples where there is disagreement between whether the prefix and at least some of the people it refers to are first/second/third person, if they exist, since the examples you cited were both third person all around.
{matay' jIH molor tuq je}, {Sutay' SoH molor tuq je} (msn.onstage.startrek.expert.okrand, Sept. 1, 1997) There's also this apparently erroneous sentence, spoken by Uhura: {Qob lIb bam SoH chuDlI' je} [sic] (Star Trek Into Darkness) I'm fairly certain that {lIb} was invented to cover for {lI-} (it-you (plural)) being used mistakenly in place of {bo-} (you (plural)-it). Okrand apparently felt that a dropped prefix error (which maybe can even be excused as "clipped") is better than a wrong prefix error. -- De'vID
Thanks for the examples.
On Jun 22, 2019, at 12:06, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
There's also this apparently erroneous sentence, spoken by Uhura: {Qob lIb bam SoH chuDlI' je} [sic] (Star Trek Into Darkness)
I'm fairly certain that {lIb} was invented to cover for {lI-} (it-you (plural)) being used mistakenly in place of {bo-} (you (plural)-it). Okrand apparently felt that a dropped prefix error (which maybe can even be excused as "clipped") is better than a wrong prefix error.
Yeah. That does seem likely. If true, I’m glad he decided that Uhura is proficient enough in Klingon to not make such a mistake, in-universe. (A marked difference from the portrayal of Uhura’s Klingon proficiency in TUC.)
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