tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 11 07:49:01 1996
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Re: partitives
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: partitives
- Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 09:48:59 CDT
- In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:18:40 PDT." <[email protected]>
[email protected] writes:
>
>
> ghunchu'wI'vo':
> > Is {cha' Dujchaj} "two of their ships" or "their two ships"? Both=20
> > interpretations are sensible, so that doesn't help much. =20
>
> Both interpretations are sensible sentences in English, but (I'd say) =
> only one is currently supported as an interpretation of the Klingon.
>
I, too, am not sure I understand the distinction between 'cardinal'
and 'prepropositional' (?); but what if Klingons perceive {Dujchaj}
not as "their ship" but as "ship of theirs" - would then {cha' Dujchaj},
interpreted 'cardinally', mean "two (ships of theirs)" (which seems to
me to be the same thing as "two of their ships")?
> > But try=20
> > {Hoch qamDu'vam} -- "all of these feet" or "*these all feet"? This
> > is a bit less ambiguous, and it seems to lend support to a possible
> > partitive use of numbers before nouns.
>
> I'd say that in this case, the one supported interpretation is less =
> sensible; just because the other one is more sensible in English, =
> doesn't mean it's more supported in Klingon. {{:) =20
>
and although you can't do with "this" and "that", what I did above
with "their", in English, maybe you can in Klingon; they belong to
the same class of noun suffixes after all.
or are there canon phrases that clearly show, the interpretation
I've given above cannot be used?
HomDoq