[tlhIngan Hol] {Hoch} before and after a noun

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Fri May 27 08:15:54 PDT 2022


(p. 157, line 14) {Qapla'meywIj Hoch vIta'ta' 'e' DaHar'a'}

The discussion is about the placement of the {Hoch} in this sentence, i.e.,
whether it should've gone before {Qapla'meywIj}, and how {Hoch} had been
used previously. In the paq'batlh, {Hoch} preceding both singular and
explicitly plural nouns appear in a number of places. There's also
{muptaHvIS tay''eghmoH QeHDaj Hoch} "All his rage focussed in one blow" on
p. 159, line 9. These are already part of the context of the discussion, so
they're not mentioned below.


De'vID:
According to what you've told us, {Hoch X} means "each X, taken
individually" when X is not explicitly plural, and "all X's, taken
collectively" when X is explicitly plural. [article from HolQeD 5:2]

On the other hand, {X Hoch} means "all of X", as in {nIn Hoch natlhlu'pu'}
"All the fuel has been consumed" from KGT p.155.

So the question here is whether what's intended is "all my successes, taken
collectively" or "all of my successes". And if it's the latter, what's the
grammar in terms of whether X is explicitly plural, or a mass noun (like
{nIn}).

MO:
>>> The observation about {Hoch} is correct. [Clarification by De'vID: This
refers to the observation earlier that it should've been {Hoch
Qapla'meywIj}.]

But my thinking now is that it doesn’t matter here because I don’t think we
need the {Hoch} (or the {-wIj}, for that matter) at all. [snip: a
discussion followed about various possibilities for revising the sentence,
which isn't relevant to this post because the revised sentence ended up not
having {Hoch} in it at all. ]

(end of quoted message)


To summarise, these are all correct:
{Hoch tlhInganpu'} "all Klingons" (taken collectively)
{Hoch tlhIngan} "each Klingon, every Klingon" (considered individually)
{nIn Hoch} "all of the fuel" / {QeHDaj Hoch} "all of his anger"

{Hoch nIn} and {Hoch QeHDaj} would be wrong, because you can't have "each
fuel, every fuel" (assuming {nIn} is uncountable) or "each of his angers,
every of his angers" or something like that. There's also the example of
{tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej HochHom} "most of the 23rd century" (from
SkyBox 15), which suggests {tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej Hoch} for "all
of the 23rd century". {Hoch tera' vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej} would mean
"each/every 23rd century" (which doesn't make sense, unless you were
writing a multiversal time-travel story or something).

Dr. Okrand left unanswered the question of what it means when {Hoch}
follows a noun which is countable, whether it's singular or explicitly
plural, like {tlhIngan Hoch} or {tlhInganpu' Hoch}. The removal of
{Qapla'meywIj Hoch} (which I believe was our only example of this
construction) may be suggestive.

-- 
De'vID
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