tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 01 12:30:58 2002
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Re: yaywIj yIngaq!
ja' [email protected]:
>Meanwhile, please, all you beginners out there, please note that I am joking.
>I'm making an absurd, but interesting leap into the imaginary realm where you
>can put noun suffixes on numbers, which are chuvmey, not nouns. Numbers
>can, in
>limited instances, be used as nouns, but it really is a kind of elision, where
>there is an understood noun that has been dropped out with the number in its
>stead. The number would be preceeding that noun, if the noun were there, but
>the noun is gone. That's a long way from taking noun suffixes.
I know of two examples which are *very* weakly relevant.
First is the use of the noun suffix {-Hom} on {Hoch} in Skybox card S13:
{tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej HochHom lo'lu'taH.} {Hoch} arguably acts
like a number in some cases, though probably not this one, so this actually
doesn't provide any real support for noun suffixes on numbers.
The other example is Okrand's mention of the story about a dishonest
merchant and the use of the word {'ujHom}. The diminutive suffix
apparently went on the unit of measure, not the quantity.
So if I really needed to talk about "a little less than seven minutes", I'd
feel most comfortable with something like {Soch tupHom}, but I'd probably
only use it without reservation if I intended to imply a prearranged period
of time being cut short. I'd understand if someone said {SochHom}, but I
would only say it myself for rhetorical effect.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh