[tlhIngan Hol] "Seasons of Love" in Klingon / And two grammatical questions

[SuStel]

On 1/6/2022 10:13 AM, Will Martin wrote:
> I’d like a clarification. I sometimes have false memories, so I won’t 
> assume that my memory that {HochHom X} would be plural (more than half 
> of whole 0items in the group of items called X) and {X HochHom} would 
> be singular (more than half of one item called X). When before the 
> noun, I thought {HochHom} behaved grammatically like a number, and 
> when following the noun, it acted more like a second noun in a 
> noun-noun construction. I thought that {Hoch} worked the same way.

We've seen *Hoch X* and we've seen *X HochHom,* but I don't think we've 
seen *HochHom X.* More in a minute on *X Hoch.*

We know the rules for *Hoch X* because Okrand told them to us. *Hoch X* 
means /each X, taken individually/ when X has no plural suffix on it, 
and it means /all X's, taken collectively/ when X has a plural suffix on 
it. You can call this "grammatically like a number" if you like, but 
it's a bit more complicated than that.

We've seen *X HochHom* in canon and its use seems obvious. It means 
/most of X, the majority of X./ You can think of it as more like a 
noun-noun construction than a number if you like. I'm not sure the 
distinction of "like a number" and "like a noun-noun construction" is 
necessarily mutually exclusive or useful — that is, I wouldn't want to 
assign any predictive power to a declaration of being in one category or 
the other.

We have, for example, the phrase *Hoch botlh* in /paq'batlh,/ which 
doesn't mean /each center;/ it's being used as a noun-noun construction, 
because the translation is /center of all./

As for *X Hoch,* we have an example of that in /paq'batlh:
/

*jIlay'DI' reH batlh jIpabchugh
     Qapla'meywIj Hoch vIta'ta' 'e' DaHar'a'
     quv vuv nuv pagh ghajbogh neH*

/Did you think that my word of honor
     Would have carried me this far?
     Honor is for those with nothing to lose!/

I interpret *Qapla'meywIj Hoch*//as /all my successes,/ to correspond to 
the English /this far./ It seems to be exactly identical in meaning to 
*Hoch Qapla'meywIj.* The grammar here remains unexplained. All 21 other 
instances of *Hoch* in /paq'batlh/ follow known rules.


> I’m guessing this is similar to numbers in general, since {vagh X} is 
> five Xs, but {X vagh} is a specific item from a group of items called 
> {X}, so that numbers indicate degree of plurality when preceding 
> nouns, and describe a specific, singular noun when they follow it.

I wouldn't assume this is parallel. I wouldn't set up a guess as a 
parallel in order to be able to use the guess as the basis for 
predicting correct grammar.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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