tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 31 11:02:47 1998
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Quantifier nouns: {Hoch} et al.
BoP poster:
> cha' choQmey naQ tu'lu' 'ej tep choQ bIngDaq lo' law' bID choQ tu'lu'
> 2 Full Decks and a Half Utility Deck under the Cargo Deck
charghwI':
> I considered this, though we still don't have a lot of clarity
> about this. For "a half utility deck", I can see "half" being a
> number. There is no other half to the deck. It is like a
> measurement of the deck relating to its size. Meanwhile, for
> "half of the tribble", I see it as a noun. It is the tribble's
> half. That same tribble has another half. That makes it a
> noun-noun with tribble coming first and half following.
DloraH:
: Personally I accept your usage. I thought there might be some people that
: don't and was just throwing in more discussion (lurkers).
Voragh:
: And I'm one of those who don't. Based on the limited evidence - just
once on
: KBP! - {bID} would seem to work like that other odd number-like noun {Hoch},
: placed before the noun it modifies. You are then able to vary the meaning
: slightly depending on whether that noun is singular or plural, again just
like
: {Hoch}. E.g.:
:
: chIS Hoch yIH.
: Each tribble is white.
: chIS bID yIH.
: Half of the tribble is white. The tribble is half white.
: Heghpu' Hoch yIHmeyvam.
: All of these tribbles are dead. Every one of these tribbles is dead.
: Heghpu' bID yIHmeyvam.
: Half of these tribbles are dead.
peHruS:
> voragh qechmo' jIQochbe'
These number-like nouns - or quantifiers, as I'm going to call them - work
more
like numbers than nouns in regular N1-N2 constructions. We don't say *{yIH
Hoch} "the tribble's all" when we want to say "each/every tribble", rather
{Hoch yIH} just like any other number:
wa' yIH one tribble
cha' yIH(mey) two tribbles
pagh yIH(mey) no (zero) tribbles, none of the tribbles
Other quantifiers *may* work the same way as {Hoch}.
Hoch yIHmey all (of) the tribbles
If the noun following {Hoch} is explicitly plural, it means "all"; if it is
singular, it means "each". (Okrand, HolQeD 5.2). So ...
'op yIH(mey) some of the tribbles
HochHom yIH most of the tribbles
Just to make things interesting, Okrand uses {HochHom} "most, greater part"
and {'op} "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity" in some unusual syntax in
the SkyBox cards:
qItI'nga Duj tera' vatlh DISpoH cha'maH wej HochHom lo'lu'taH
[The] K'Tinga-class remained in use for most of the 23rd century. (S15)
'ej DujvamDaq 'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh po' law' tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law'
po' puS
It [IKC Pagh] has ... some of the finest warriors in the Klingon fleet. (S7)
These examples are unfortunately the sole occurences of these two quantifiers
in canon. Further adding to the confusion is the fact that plural suffixes
are
usually optional in Klingon and I would have expected {'op SuvwI'pu'}.
I suspect that we will eventually discover that the syntax of formal,
literary/scholarly Klingon - such as that in the SkyBox cards - is rather more
complicated than the elementary sketch Okrand presented in TKD and CK, which
was never intended to be anything other than an basic introduction to the
language for "Federation tourists" travelling to the Empire. As he reminds us
in the introduction to TKD (I believe):
Although a good many of the fine points are not covered, the sketch will
allow the student of Klingon to figure out what a Klingon is saying and
to respond in an intelligible, though somewhat brutish, manner. Most
Klingons will never know the difference.
So to finally bring this to a close, it's not *{yIH bID} the "tribble's half",
but rather {bID yIH} "the half tribble" and {bID yIHmey} "half of the
tribbles". IMESHOof course and always bearing in mind that - except for
{Hoch} - we're extrapolating from a single example of each of these
quantifiers.
But we've argued with even less evidence before in this forum, so why should
that stop us now?
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons