tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 11 13:50:27 1996

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RE: usage of Hoch and latlh

Glen's response to Mark Shoulson and d'Ammond Speers:

The most notorious misuse of <<tlhIngan Hol>> since the <<-ghach>> debate was 
settled (It's still not settled in my opinion as I see a lot of bad <<-ghach>> 
constructions out there) is the placing of <<Hoch>>,  <<bID>>,  and <<latlh>> 
in NOUN-NOUN (N-N) constructions.  All three of these MUST PRECEDE the nouns 
modified and not follow it.  The issue of partitivity is not dealt with under 
that name, but it IS explained in TKD.  The problems of interpretation I see 
by Klingonists is their failure to understand parts of speech as they apply to 
<<tlhIngan Hol>>.

Although Okrand refers to only three parts of speech:  <<DIpmey>>,  
<<wotmey<<, and <<chuvmey>>, you cannot simply look something up in the word 
lists to see which of the three categories the word in question falls under 
and then automatically know how to use it.  You must study the text of the 
grammatical explanations and the examples given.

The first MISCONCEPTION is that numbers ARE NOT nouns, because they are listed 
in the chuvmey section.  Although numbers in every language fall into a 
special category, Klingon numbers are either NOUNS or ADVERBS (TKD 5.2, pp 
54-55).  A number plus a noun is a de facto N-N construction and must be 
treated as such.  We know that the expression <<pagh tlhIngan means zero 
Klingons, no Klingons OR non of the Klingons, i.e., partitive.  Since pagh 
tlhIngan>> means "NONE of the Klingons", it stands to reason that its opposite 
"ALL of the Klingons" must follow the same pattern, <<Hoch tlhIngan>>.  
Similarly, even though <<bID>> is listed as a noun and not a number, COMMON 
SENSE should tell you that if numbers are used as nouns, then nouns expressing 
quantity, even though they are not listed as chuvmey, must follow the rules of 
other numbers.  I would expect that the correct way to indicate "I am half 
Klingon" would be <<wa' bID tlhIngan jIH.>>  Can there be any doubt whatsoever 
that this is the correct word order?  Would you prefer <<tlhIngan wa' bID 
jIH?>>  <<latlh>> falls under the same category:  <<latlh tlhIngan>>means 
"another Klingon" or "another of the Klingons," again partitive.  Much of this 
confusion in the Klingon public may stems from the misapplication of TKD 3.3.4 
concerning possession, where we are told that "the enemy's weapon", <<jagh 
nuH>>, can also be translated "weapon of the enemy."  This led to the grand 
and erroneous conclusion that all, "OF THE" constructions, should be treated 
as possessives, when in fact we know that partitivity and possession are two 
different concepts.  "The weapon OF THE enemy" is possession, "all OF THE 
Klingons" is partitive.  While it is true that <<wa' bID tlhIngan>> can be 
ambiguous because it can mean either "one-half Klingon" or "one-half of the 
Klingons", the Klingon language is an ambiguous language and this is not an 
argument against using <<bID>> as a number, which it clearly is.

Second, <<mangghom>> means "a soldier's group", i.e., an army.  This is a 
standard N-N compound for army.  If you wanted to say "a group of soldiers" 
and use it partitively, then the correct translation would be <<ghom negh>>, 
since <<mang>> is singular.  There is, however, no canonical evidence for 
<<ghom>> being used partitively.

One really needs to study Okrand's use of parts of speech more carefully in 
order to understand his fluidity of grammatical concepts:

	1.  Numbers are treated as either nouns or adverbs
	2.  Personal pronouns are treated as either verbs or nouns
	3.  Interrogative pronouns (question words) are also treated as nouns or 
verbs                  or pronouns
	4.  Nouns are sometimes treated as adverbs (DaHjaj, Dat, etc.)
	5.  English adjectives can be expressed by nouns, stative verbs, bogh-clauses
	     meH-clauses, etc.)
	6.  Past participles are created by <<lu'bogh>> or <<lu'pu'bogh>>             
     constructions.

If you don't keep your eyes open for such peculiarities of <<tlhIngan Hol>>, 
then you can also miss the obvious conclusion that "1/2 is a number!!!"

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