[tlhIngan Hol] {ngIq} again

[De'vID]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2022 at 22:56, Ed Bailey <bellerophon.modeler at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Monday, June 13, 2022, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq at protonmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to use *Hoch* after a countable singular noun? Like *chab
>> Hoch vISop* *I eat the whole cake* (I've seen some use *naQ*, but I've
>> understood that it is wrong, as the cake is "whole" before I eat it
>> regardless of whether I eat all of it or just a part).
>>
>> Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio
>> ------- Original Message -------
>> On Monday, June 13th, 2022 at 20.26, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>
> I would jump in here just to point out that cake in English is also a mass
> noun, so it should be fine unless {chab} is not used as a mass noun in
> Klingon.
>

I just realised that may be support for {Hoch} after a countable singular
noun, but with some caveats, in {tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej HochHom}.
I gave Dr. Okrand a list of all prior usages of {Hoch} (including
{HochHom}) in our discussion about {Hoch}. He confirmed that {Hoch} (or
{HochHom}) after an uncountable noun like {nIn} or {QeH} would mean "all"
(or "most") of the thing. He accepted that {HochHom} works like {Hoch},
following a noun. He didn't raise any objection to the implied {vatlh DIS
poH Hoch}, but then there was a lot of stuff he didn't comment on so he
might've just missed or ignored it as it wasn't relevant to the paq'batlh.
But it seems that {vatlh DIS poH Hoch} would be okay for "all of the
century". Among the questions he ignored was what {tlhIngan Hoch} or
{tlhInganpu' Hoch} would mean, if anything. (But he ignored a lot of
questions that had no direct bearing on the passages we were editing, even
if they came up in the context of those passages.)

We know {from {qaStaHvIS wej puq poHmey...}) that {poH} is countable. ({puq
poHmey} also appears in one passage in the 2ed.) But there's a
complication, since {puq poHmey} is a kind of metonymy. That is, it refers
to a group of people, even though the words actually describe a period of
time (a "child period" or "offspring period"). So {puq poH Hoch[Hom]}, if
it means anything, would not be "all [most] of the people of the
generation" but "all [most] of the child period".

In any case, it seems that {poH Hoch} would be grammatical and means "all
of the time period", even though {poH} is countable. However, {poH} (and in
particular, {vatlh DIS poH}) is a sort of thing that seems like it's
naturally divisible. If you divide a {poH}, you get a {poH} (even if it's a
smaller one). That isn't true of {tlhIngan}, so {tlhIngan Hoch} might not
be okay even if {poH Hoch} is. I think a {chab} is arguably more like {poH}
than {tlhIngan}, as it's a thing that you would normally divide to share
for eating (if you divide a {chab} you still get a thing that would be
{chab}, unlike {tlhIngan}), so I think {poH Hoch} suggests that {chab Hoch}
is okay. But that's just my opinion.

-- 
De'vID
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