tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 23 12:04:08 2004

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Probability

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

Paul:
>I haven't been really following, but has anyone suggested using /DIch/
>"certainty" in combination with "percent"?
>It would only seem to work if it's legal to have a noun-number-noun
>construction, though:
>    * DIch vaghmaH vatlhvI'
>      "Fifty percent of certainty."

Our single example of {vatlhvI'} "percent":

   cha'maHvagh vatlhvI' Hong:  QIt yIghoS.
   Slow to one quarter impulse power. ST5 (punctuation uncertain)

This seems to indicate that {vatlhvI'} is used like an extended number + 
noun, not like a possessive noun + noun phrase.

>I think this, if it's workable is actually a more accurate translation of
>the English "50% chance" -- because the English phrase subsumes a concept
>of "a percentage of certainty" (ie. 100% chance is "a certainty").  Using
>percent with things like /'eb/ or /DuH/ seems slightly redundant to me,
>though I couldn't tell you why.

Thus - assuming {DIch} is the correct noun here - your phrase is not

   *DIch vaghmaH vatlhvI'
    "certainty's fifty percent"

but

   vaghmaH vatlhvI' DIch
   "fifty-percent certainty"

analogous to:

   vaghmaH DIch
   "fifty certainties"  (whatever that might mean)

dropping {vatlhvI'}.  {vatlhvI'} seems to be used like another number-like 
noun {bID} "half":

   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" (KBoP)

i.e. {bID choQ} "half a deck, a half deck".

Can anyone think of other "number-like" nouns - *{mI'qoq} or *{mI'Hey} 
perhaps? - used by Okrand in an example?


-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

Back to archive top level