tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 31 12:24:16 1998
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Re: Quantifier nouns: {Hoch} et al.
- From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Quantifier nouns: {Hoch} et al.
- Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:21:53 -0600
At 11:13 AM 12/31/98 -0800, Voragh wrote:
>
>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
>
An argument I've made before and am going to dredge up again:
I don't see numbers or "quantifiers" (I called them "qualifiers" in
a previous post) as behaving differently than any other N1-N2
construction. Put aside Okrand's description of N1-N2 as a
"possessive" form for a moment; I think that's just his non-technical
way of describing ONE feature of the N1-N2 construction for the
general public. As d'Armond noted in a HolQeD article a while
back, there are plenty of N1-N2 examples in canon that show something
else is going on here, too.
To me, the essence of the N1-N2 construction is that the N2 noun is
modified or restricted in some way by the N1 noun. That is, the N2
noun describes the entire universal set of N2 objects, and the N1
noun then delimits a subset of that set. I see this as explaining
every known use of N1-N2 constructions, including numbers and titles:
yaS taj - of the universal set of knives, the officer's one(s)
peQ chem -f the universal set of fields, the one made of magnetism
romuluS HIq - of the universal set of liquors, the one from/associated
with Romulus
Hoch yIHmey - of the universal set of tribbles, all of them (the original
set and the subset can be co-extensive!)
latlh yIH - of the universal set of tribbles, another of them (than the
subset under current discussion)
'aqroS qughDo - of the universal set of possible cruising speeds, the
greatest one
pagh yIH - of the universal set of tribbles, none of them
chorgh yIH - of the universal set of tribbles, eight of them
enterpray' 'ejDo' - of the universal set of starships, the "Enterprise" one
Qugh HoD - of the universal set of captains, the "Kruge" one,
and so forth.
This has always made sense to me, since the day I first learned the
N1-N2 construction. I used it to predict the behavior of /Hoch/ and
/latlh/ before we had canon examples. I especially like how it covers
all the canon examples of N1-N2's under one convenient principle
(except for the Skybox /HochHom/). True, a plural suffix can change
the implication of the N1 word, but I don't think this affects the
basic interpretation of N1-N2.
-- ter'eS