tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 24 07:01:18 1999
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Re: Using {'op}
ja' Voragh:
>Okrand has used the noun {'op} "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity" just
>once, in SkyBox card S7:
>
> 'ej DujvamDaq 'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh po' law' tlhIngan yo'
> SuvwI' law' po' puS
> It [IKC Pagh] has ... some of the finest warriors in the
> Klingon fleet. S7
>
>Note he translates {'op SuvwI'} as "some of the warriors", not "some of the
>warrior" (i.e. a piece of him). Perhaps the plural suffix is omitted
>following
>{'op}, or perhaps "some of the warrior" just doesn't make sense in this
>particular context. {'op ghot} should indeed mean "some people".
There's a difference between "some people" and "some of the people." In
the S7 example, because of the {law'/puS} construction, it's hard to tell
whether the literal meaning of the words is the same as the way they have
been translated. I can't tell where the "some of" meaning is actually
coming from. Is {'op} a counting modifier or a partitive modifier?
An approximate literal translation of the Skybox phrase comes out like:
"And some warriors which are found on this ship are more skilled than
many Klingon fleet warriors." The meaning doesn't quite match what the
English sentence given on the card says.
The definition of {'op} is "unspecified quantity". It's not given as
"unspecified quantity of". I'd tend to use it as a quantifier. (Based
on the way {Hoch} works, I would expect a partitive use to *follow* the
noun it's modifying. But that's using logical arguments, which don't
necessarily apply to language usage.)
>AFAIK Okrand hasn't commented on whether there's a difference between {'op
>chab} and {'op chabmey}. Does the former mean "some of the pie" (i.e. a
>piece), while the latter is "some of the pies" (i.e. 3 pies out of a batch of
>10)? Or do they both mean "some of the pies", with the plural suffix
>optional?
I would understand both of them to mean "some pies". The way I read it,
there isn't an "of the" meaning in it at all. There are some pies, and
the number of pies is unspecified. With your "some of the pies", there
is a collection of pies, and you're talking about a subset of them.
{'op} means "unspecified quantity", not "unspecified subset".
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh