tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 14 04:38:08 1994

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"latlh" and "Hoch"

>From: "joy'wI'" <[email protected]>
>Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 16:34:49 -0500 (EST)

>I have noticed some disagreements with the use of "latlh" (additional one)
>and "Hoch" (all). The problem is that these are nouns, but we would like to
>be able to use them as adjectives. Here are my suggestions, for what they're
>worth.

>To say "the other captian", I would use "latlh 'oHbogh HoD'e'", or "The
>captain which is also an additional one". For clipped Klingon I would use
>"latlh HoD'e'" or "latlh HoD" (eleminating the verb "to be").

I don't know about this.  Clipping to remove a verb?  Um, maybe, but only
when just one of the subject or object is important.  Look at the section
on clipping again, nothing of this sort shows up at all.  Nor do we see
dropping any sort of "-bogh" words.  I prefer "the other captain"="the
captain's other" (i.e. "the captain's fellow [captain]"), this "HoD latlh".

>To say "All the captains", I would use "HoDpu' ghom naQ", or "The entire
>group of captains". Notice that this does not use "Hoch" at all. Clipped
>Klingon would be "HoDpu' naQ" or maybe even "HoD naQ" if it is obvious that
>you were talking about more than one captain. "Hoch" should be reserved for
>the "law'... puS" construction and cases where the objects which are being
>refered to are unknown/vague or obvious.

Here, too, what we know about clipping doesn't bear this out much.
Clipping doesn't mean we can blithely pare away chunks of the sentence we
don't feel like pronouncing!  Besides, what if the captains aren't in a
group?  What if some of them are enemy captains? "HoD naQ" sounds like "an
entire captain", or "whole captains", as opposed to just the drumstick.
Note, too, that "all" is a noun in English too!  And how do we use it?
Genitively:  "all OF the captains": HoD[pu'] Hoch.

>   joy'wI'


~mark

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