[tlhIngan Hol] ngIq clarified

[Lieven]

Hi,

I had forwarded your questions on {ngIq}, and here is Okrand's answer. 
Basically, your assumptions were right, but it's good to have this 
clarified.
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For the archive: this is printed in qepHom 2017, page 24.
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{ngIq} can indeed carry the "one after the other" or "one by one" 
meaning.  So {ngIq mIch wIHotlh] could mean "we scan each individual 
sector one after the other" or "we scan the sectors one by one."

{Hoch} does not have this sequential meaning. {Hoch mIch wIHotlh} is 
simply "we scan each sector".

{Hoch} focuses on things as members of a group; {ngIq} focuses on the 
individual things. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Both {Hoch} and {ngIq} could be translated with "each"; {Hoch}, but not 
{ngIq}, could be translated with "every."  {ngIq} could also be 
translated as "single" or "individual" but the implication is that there 
are or could be other similar things as well (even if they don't matter 
for what is currently being talked about).  For example, in paq'batlh, 
the phrase {ngIq tonSaw'}is translated "one single move." The 
implication is that whatever is going on here could have been or might 
have been accomplished with several moves (presumably sequentially), but 
one was enough.  Saying {wa' tonSaw'} would not get across the idea that 
more than one move was possible but was not needed and did not occur.

Sometimes {ngIq} and {Hoch} are interchangeable. For example, a sentence 
in Monopoly is {ngIq gholvo' wa'maH QaS yItlhap} "Collect 10 forces from 
every player." Chances are, you'll take the forces from each opponent 
one at a time, one after the other (so {ngIq} is used appropriately 
here), but collecting the forces sequentially is not important as far as 
the game goes (so {Hoch} would have been fine as well).

{ngIq X} is considered inherently plural (like {cha} and some other 
words) since it refers to more than one X (if there were only one X, 
you'd simply say X or wa' X.) As such, it is grammatically singular, so 
{wIHotlh} in your sentence is correct; {DIHotlh} is wrong.

(The description of {ngIq} in boQwI' is pretty good.)


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This tidbit from #qepHom2017 will be added to the page "Message from 
Maltz" on qepHom.de later:
https://www.qephom.de/e/message_from_maltz.html

-- 
Lieven L. Litaer
aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
http://www.klingonisch.net
http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/qepHom2017