[tlhIngan Hol] law' puS construction with law'

Lieven levinius at gmx.de
Wed Oct 11 09:35:01 PDT 2017


Am 11.10.2017 um 18:10 schrieb SuStel:
> I don't see the difference here, either. Using *vItlh* doesn't relate 
> your sentence to numbers; you're just saying, /that's a lot./ Which is 
> what *law'* is saying with *'ul law'.*
> 
> I think the difference, which I just suggested in another message, is 
> that *vItlh* is more general than *law'**. law' *is only about quantity, 
> while *vItlh* is about quantity or size or intensity or whatever it is 
> by which you measure a thing. 

All of this is just guessing, so no offense, but I see it acutally the 
opposite: {law'} means "many" without thinking of numbers, while {vItlh} 
is used when one can expect an answer in numbers or measure the thing 
you talk about.  Like saying "this thing costs more" or "the price for 
this is higher".

I know this sounds very vague as well, and I may be wrong. It seems to 
me that Okrand has avoided to say {Do law'} "a lot of speed" because 
both speed are "a lot" already: Speed of sound really is {Do law'}. So 
he wanted to say that the measured amount of the speed is high. That's 
different from saying that one is faster than the other. It's saying 
that the number of the speed is higher - not just saying it's {law'}.

And yes, you can also measure electricity, I know, but perhaps that was 
not important when talking about "it consumes a lot of electricty".

Disclaimer: I'm not saying I'm right and I do not want to convince 
anyone. This is only my interpretation that anyone can use as they want.


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



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