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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/22/2021 12:57 PM, Will Martin
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:F8D44A8E-97DF-43B5-BE89-0055AC72D017@mac.com">
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<div class="">Whenever my wife hears someone say something like,
“There are less people at this party than the last one,” she
cringes and points out that one should say “fewer” instead of
“less”. The proper use of “less” is something like “The left
front tire on that car has less air in it than the right front
tire.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Meanwhile, the Klingon gloss of {puS} covers “few”,
but not “less”. Is its meaning limited to the gloss?</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">In the {law’/puS} construction, we say things like
{jIH tIn law’ SoH tIn puS} without implying that we are talking
about more inches (in which direction?) or square inches of
surface area, or cubic inches of volume, so that we could be
talking about my “many” cubic inches and your “few” cubic
inches. We commonly use it for “more” and “less” in the
non-numeric comparison of quantity, lacking any integer value.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>It's the difference between countable and uncountable nouns. You
use <i>fewer</i> with countable nouns and <i>less</i> with
uncountable nouns. <i>Fewer people, fewer attacks, fewer ideas,</i>
but <i>less water, less time, less honor.</i><br>
</p>
<p><br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:F8D44A8E-97DF-43B5-BE89-0055AC72D017@mac.com">
<div class="">I mean, am I really saying, “I have many bigs; you
have few bigs,”? It feels more like, “I have much bigness; you
have less bigness."</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Is there anywhere outside of the definition gloss
where the definition includes the “less” meaning in addition to
the stated “few” meaning?</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I can't directly answer this question, but I can point out that <b>vItlh</b><i>
be high, be great (in quantity, size, intensity)</i> is used for
uncountable nouns, while <b>law'</b> <i>be many, be numerous</i>
is used for countable nouns. And <b>law'</b> is used in
comparatives and superlatives even if they've got uncountable
nouns, so I wouldn't go trying to analyze <b>puS</b> directly as
used in those types of sentences.</p>
<p>Maybe there's an uncountable counterpart to <b>puS</b> that we
just haven't learned yet. Or maybe <b>puS</b> does both. We
really can't tell, and I don't think it would be safe to rely too
much on the English grammar of the gloss for the Klingon grammar.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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