tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 24 14:06:29 1999

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Re: Hoch/HochHom, etc.

What you are now saying is correct and agrees with what I was 
suggesting. What you originally said, perhaps because of your 
efforts at compressing it, seemed backwards. I now see that it 
it was simply ambiguous.

On Wed, 24 Feb 1999 13:38:25 -0800 (PST) [email protected] wrote:

> In a message dated 2/24/99 1:54:27 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> [email protected] writes:
> 
> <<  > I just wanted a little clarification on Hoch, HochHom, and 'op.
>  > 
>  > If they precede the noun, is is all (or each)/most/some of the X.  

I was thrown by your use of "of the" and the absence of any 
plural indication for X. What you want is "each X, most Xes, 
some Xes". The less you try to write this in shorthand, the 
clearer you'll be.

>  > If they
>  > follow, it becomes all/most/some X.  Is this correct?

Here is where I expected "of the" and no plural. "All of the X, 
most of the X, some of the X."

That's why I stated it in a more complete form with less 
shorthand:

>  If I understand you correctly, you got it backwards.
>  
>  Hoch qagh yISop. Eat each serpent worm.
>  
>  Hoch qaghmey yISop. Eat all serpent worms.
>  
>  qagh Hoch yISop. Eat all of the serpent worm.
>  
>  Does this help?
>  
>  > T'Lod
>  
>  charghwI' 'utlh >>

Now, what you say fits what I was saying:
 
> On page 155 of KGT, it says nIn Hoch natlhlu'pu' - All the fuel is consumed,
> meaning the entire quantity of fuel in the ship.  nIn Hoch is translated as
> "all the fuel," so wouldn't Hoch nIn mean "each fuel" and Hoch nInmey be "all
> of the fuels"? 

Fuel is perhaps not the best example. Several people find it 
confusing because of the whole issue of plurality when referring 
to a liquid or gas or even a solid with no sense of unit. {qagh} 
is a better example, so long as you mean that {qagh} is a single 
worm. Even here, there is a potential problem because as we 
learned on the Klingon CD, many foods are commonly expressed 
only in the singular (like {qurgh}} regardless of whether the 
actual item is singular or plural. A bean is {qurgh}. A ton of 
beans is still {qurgh}.

> And here qagh Hoch - "all the gagh," Hoch qagh - "each gagh,"
> and Hoch qaghmey - "all of the gaghs"?

So, maybe if we use something less controversial, like {Duj}.

Hoch Dujmey vIlegh. I see all the ships.

Hoch Duj vIlegh. I see each ship.

Duj Hoch vIlegh. I see all of the ship.

Or we could talk about staffs.

Hoch naQmey vIje'. I bought all the staffs.

Hoch naQ vIje'. I bought each staff. (Had to go to a separate 
dealer for each one.)

naQ Hoch vIje'. I bought all of the staff. (Not just half of it.)

naQ naQ vIje'. I bought the whole staff. (Not the disassembled 
one.)

Hoch naQ naQ vIje'. (I bought each of the whole staffs. I didn't 
buy any of them in pieces.)

Hoch naQmey naQ vIje'. I bought all the whole staffs. (I got 
there before anybody else and didn't leave any of the whole ones 
behind.)

naQ naQ Hoch vIje'. I bought all of the whole staff. (I didn't 
use anybody's money but my own. No partners. It's all MINE, 
Mwaahahahahahahahahaaaaa!)

Clear yet?

> T'Lod

charghwI' 'utlh

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