[tlhIngan Hol] two klorns of bloodwine, a bottle of water

[SuStel]

On 4/29/2021 2:47 AM, De'vID wrote:
> This is a question that came up over on the Discord server. I thought 
> it would be good to open it up to more opinions and have the 
> discussion archived on the mailing list.
>
> How would you say "two klorns of bloodwine"? For example, "I want to 
> drink two klorns of bloodwine"?
>
> How would you say "a jug of water" (or "three jugs of water", etc ), 
> meaning water served in a water jug. (That is, how would you refer to 
> the water in the water jug, and not the jug itself, bearing in mind 
> that {bIQ bal} is defined as "water jug" in KGT.)
>
> Can the noun-noun construction (N1-N2 = N2 of the N1) be used here?
>
> (For the sake of the argument, let's say that context alone isn't 
> sufficient to distinguish between a jug full of water from an empty 
> water jug.)


*bIQ* is a mass noun, so saying *bal bIQ*/jug-water/ would also be a 
mass noun. Without special rules, you couldn't make it countable. In 
English, water is usually a mass noun, but it can be made countable when 
referring to a serving of water, so that you can say /three waters./ I 
do not assume you can do that in Klingon without word from Maltz. But 
you can certainly say *bal bIQ vItlhutlh vIneH*/I want to drink 
jug-water; I want to drink water from a jug./

Otherwise, I'd go for the lengthier, but uncontroversial, *bIQ ngaSbogh 
wej bal*/three jugs containing water//water contained in three 
jugs,//and *cha' tlho'ren muqbogh 'Iw HIq*/bloodwine having a volume of 
two klorns./

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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