[tlhIngan Hol] using {'op} with {law'} and {puS}

[Will Martin]

I think you are leaning heavily upon the “an unknown or unspecified quantity” part of the gloss and skipping over the perhaps more meaningful “some” part of the gloss.

It did come first, after all. The rest is really there just to clarify the meaning of “some”.

It’s used like {Hoch} “all” or “HochHom” “most” in that it’s a grammatically unusual word, similar to a number, so it goes in front of a noun instead of after it as {law’} or {puS} would, unless you want an even more special meaning, as in {nuv ‘op} “some portion of the person” instead of {‘op nuv} “some people”, similar to {nuv Hoch} “all of the person” instead of {Hoch nuv} “all people”. Also, it can be used as a free-standing noun, again, like a number, or like {Hoch} or {HochHom}.

So, it actually would be odd to use {‘op} with {law’} or {puS}, though not technically disallowed. For the most part, I don’t see it adding meaning to the adjectivals. {law’} and {puS} are already indefinite about the quantity. Why redundantly refer to the indefinite nature of the quantity? You could as easily say {law’law’} or {puSlaw’} if you wanted to highlight your uncertainty as to the quantity.

I will confess an aversion to things said of Klingon that start with “I just realized there’s no rule against…” or “It occurs to me that you could…”, since it feels less like clarifying the boundaries of the language than just rudely poking it.

This is 100% my personal reaction, in that it feels like, “I know that I could spend decades actually using the language without ever needing to deal with this odd little grammatical issue, but I don’t really care enough about learning to use the language to get practice by using it. I’d rather just poke at it.”

There’s a huge tradition of poking at the language here, so I should just get over it. I’m working on it, okay? I’m just not quite there yet.

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)

> On Jul 22, 2021, at 8:33 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The noun {'op} is given as "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity".
> 
> I just realized that there's no rule against using the {'op} with {puS}/{law'}, thus specifying whether this "unknown quantity is of few or of many".
> 
> 'op Duj puS vIjem
> I detect an amount of ships which is of an unknown quantity (as far as their exact number is concerned), but I sense that they're few
> 
> The question now would be, whether we could apply directly the {law'}/{puS} to the {'op}; but I think that although there's no rule against it, it would sound rather strange to say {'op puS Duj} since that could sound like "ships of few/several unspecified quantities".
> 
> On the other hand though, perhaps we *could* say {'op vItlh} for "a high/great unspecified quantity". However, the question then would be what noun we could place the {'op vItlh} on; because the nouns that play well with {vItlh} i.e. the nouns that are "measurable or quantifiable but not necessary countable" don't sound that good with {'op}:
> 
> {'op Do}
> a speed of unspecified quantity
> (this sounds strange to me)
> 
> {'op vItlh Do}
> a speed of high/great unspecified quantity
> (this sounds equally strange to me)
> 
> On the third hand though, perhaps we *could* use the {'op vItlh} "a high/great unspecified quantity" with nouns which are countable:
> 
> {'op Duj}
> some ships
> (sounds fine to me)
> 
> {'op vItlh Duj}
> ships of high/great unspecified quantity
> (sounds equally fine to me)
> 
> Go figure.
> 
> ~ Dana'an
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