[Tlhingan-hol] rup

[De'vID]

qunnoQ HoD:
>> what about klingon though ? could i refer to a child in klingon using
>> the word "it" ? after all if it is still a baby,it can't speak yet.

Quvar"
> The definition is "capable of speech", which a baby is. Also deaf or mute
> people are still capable of speech. And even if people are dead, they are
> {Humanpu'}.

When DloraH asked Marc Okrand about this (way back in May 1998), he
summarised the answer he got in a post to this mailing list:
http://www.kli.org/activities/email-discussion-group/?tlhy=1998&tlhm=May&tlhp=msg00518.html

This is what DloraH wrote:
> Next, -wIj, -wI', and other related suffixes.  "Beings which are capable
> of language".  They must be a "being", which rules out things like
> computers.  And yes, it must be able to use language.  This was not simply
> another way of stating sentience.  Now, to clearify "use of language" a
> little bit...  A child which has not yet developed language would still
> get [-wI'].  This kind of goes along with how Klingon doesn't have tense.
> 99.9% chance that this child will later use language.  Someone earlier
> brought up the hypothetical situation: if someone is in a coma, they can
> not speak.  Well, they were able to, and perhaps will someday again.  They
> still get [-wI'].  When someone dies, if you are talking about the
> "person" they get [-wI'];  and of course if you are refering to the empty
> shell that is left, it gets a [-wIj].

I think of the suffixes {-pu'}, {-mey}, and {-Du'} as being almost
like grammatical classes, which apply to the word for the class of
things that an object belongs to rather than an individual instance.

So, "being capable of language" suffixes like {-wI'}, {-pu'} and so on
will apply to a baby, or a mute or unconscious person, since they
belong to a class of being who can generally speak, even if the
specific instance can't.

Similarly, {-Du'} is applied to body part words even when they're not
describing an actual part of a body. For example, the handle of a pot
for food preparation are called {DeSqIvDu'}, even though they're not
actually body-part-elbows. (See Klingon for the Galactic Traveler.)

-- 
De'vID