tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 19 18:37:07 1997
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Re: Numerically speaking
ja' Voragh:
>|ghItlh Qov:
>|> }bIghHa' ghoS wej.
>|> }The three go to the prison.
>|>
>|> Someone might argue that you can't use a number this way. The only
>|> use of a number as a noun that I know we have is {wa' yIHoH} for
>|> "Kill one of them."
>
>Those who make that argument are wrong. Okrand explicitly states that,
>"Numbers are used as nouns. As such, they may stand alone as subjects or
>objects or they may modify another noun." (TKD p.54)
>
>He then gives two examples -- one with a number acting as a stand alone
>subject, the other as a stand alone object:
>
> mulegh cha' Two (of them) see me.
> wa' yIHoH Kill one (of them)!
>
>BTW, there's another example of a number as a stand alone subject in CK:
>
> maDo'chugh QeHchoH wa' If we're lucky, one will get angry.
In each of these canon examples, the number is used in a "partitive"
sense, to mean a specific quantity of a larger group. The argument
to which Qov refers is whether or not a number can be used by itself
to talk about an entire group of already identified people or things
instead of just a subset of the group.
I'm willing to accept that usage myself. Although we have no clearcut
examples of it, it doesn't seem like an extension of the rules.
>...Hmmm, I wonder how Type 4 suffixes on a number
>would be understood by Maltz?
>
> ?Hutlh wa'wIj One of mine is missing.
> ?romuluSngan chaH cha'vam'e' These two are Romulan(s).
It's not the same as Maltz, but I'll tell you how *I* understand them.
The first one sounds exceedingly odd. It's trying to use the number
in a standard partitive way, but I've always found that type 4 noun
suffixes conflict with "presuppositional" meanings in my mind.
The second one doesn't give me this trouble; the number is being used
in an "existential" mode, which seems to coexist just fine with type 4
suffixes.
(I hope I have the existential/presuppositional distinction correct.
I might have them backwards.)
-- ghunchu'wI'