Re: CHAT: enterprise

On Monday 20 January 2003 5:33 pm, Michael Fors wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> I'm watching the Enterprise-series for the moment (what happens before Star
> Trek), and I heard something really amusing on that show. There is a female
> crew member, Hoshi. She is the language expert and she speaks Vulcan
> fluently, she can understand some Klingon, plus a number of other
> languages. She said something about an alien language after hearing about
> 30 seconds of it. She said: "It seems to be bimodal". I am not an expert on
> grammar, but it sounds to me like that has something to do with the verb
> modus, like the language only has two modus (modi?). Is that really
> something you can HEAR when listening to a language you don't know? I don't
> think so. Can anyone here give me some input on this?
>
> Cheerio,
>
> Micke
>
Bimodal means having two moods, ie. Imperative/Indicative.  First, Star Trek
is entertaining, but is not meant to be taken seriously.  Second, well, she's
a prodigy, and I think you might be able to tell some grammar by a repeated
stem with different inflections...I couldn't but she may be able to...