tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 31 20:16:17 2000
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RE: chay Doch Do maghmeH tlhIngan Hol lo'lu'?
I have a different interpretation:
wej tlho'ren HIq} would not mean "three ~liters of ale". It would mean
"Three ales of ~liter" or "three ~liter's ale". I find this to be cryptic.
Perhaps it is a name brand?
Meanwhile, I don't think we've seen units of measure used with nouns like
either of these examples give it. I think we've only seen them used like
nouns unto themselves. I suspect a safer interpretation would be something
like:
HIq vIje' vIneH. wej tlho'ren HInob.
We don't talk about three miles of road. We talk about going down the road
for three miles. Units of measure are not always attached to the things they
measure. Each language arbitrarily makes these associations, and so far as I
can remember, Klingon has not made the kind of association between
substances and units of volume measure that peHruS was asking about. Until
we see such an example, we're probably better off just handling the units of
measure in a separate clause than the substance being measured.
Besides, it is simply easy to do, and it sounds a lot like Okrand's style of
phrasing. We are supposed to be modeling our expressions after his usage as
much as after his descriptions, after all. Little related sentences packed
next to one another with parallels implied really do sound and feel
Okrandian, and so they probably look and feel Klingon.
charghwI' 'utlh
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Anderson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 1:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: chay Doch Do maghmeH tlhIngan Hol lo'lu'?
>peHruS adds to the question more than to the answer:
>
>Shoud I say {wej tlho'ren HIq} or {HIq wej thlo'ren} for 3 quarts(?) of
ale?
I can imagine each of them working with a slightly different meaning.
{wej tlho'ren HIq}, sounds like you're counting out an amount of liquor.
It implies to me the same thing as "3 ~liters of ale", quantifying what
is being discussed.
{HIq wej tlho'ren} sounds more like you're specifying a subset of what
liquor is present. I understand it as "3 ~liters of the ale", using a
partitive phrasing which presupposes that liquor was already the topic
under discussion.
But that's just the impression I get from them. I don't think I'll be
able to find any examples that support my interpretation, except for a
couple of phrases involving {Hoch}.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh