tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 30 18:07:28 1995

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Re: pagh (was latlh)




On Sun, 30 Apr 1995, Jeremy Cowan wrote:

> On Sun, 30 Apr 1995, yoDtargh wrote:
> > I was explaining why I thought your translation {no' pagh} and {no'lI' 
> > pagh} was incorrect by demonstrating how Section 5.2 says numbers are 
> > to be used.

I knew that {pagh} mean "zero" and was a conjunction, but I forgot the 
third definition of {pagh} which is "nothing" or "none".  I totally 
screwed up.  Your listing of the various combinations using {pagh} is 
correct.

Hagh qoHpu' neH HIvDI' veqlargh.

> But pagh is also a noun meaning none.  My post was really asking about 
> how to distinguish the two and how they relate.

{no'lI' pagh} is somewhat ambiguous since it could either mean "none of 
your ancesters" or "your ancestors No. 0".

However, when you number objects, you normally start with 1 and count up 
from there.  Since saying "something number zero" would be pretty rare, I 
think it would be unlikely that your meaning would be misinterpreted if 
you said {X pagh} to mean "none of X".  On the other hand, you do have the 
option of saying {pagh X} to mean "zero X's" or "no X's".

>janSIy

yoDtargh



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