<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It did come first, after all. The rest is really there just to clarify the meaning of “some”.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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}.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.”</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.</div><br class=""><div class="">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div>charghwI’ ‘utlh<br class="">(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)</div></div>
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 22, 2021, at 8:33 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <<a href="mailto:mihkoun@gmail.com" class="">mihkoun@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">The noun {'op} is given as "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity".</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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".</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">'op Duj puS vIjem</div><div class="">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</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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".</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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}:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">{'op Do}</div><div class="">a speed of unspecified quantity</div><div class="">(this sounds strange to me)<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">{'op vItlh Do}</div><div class="">a speed of high/great unspecified quantity</div><div class="">(this sounds equally strange to me)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the third hand though, perhaps we *could* use the {'op vItlh} "a high/great unspecified quantity" with nouns which are countable:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">{'op Duj}</div><div class="">some ships</div><div class="">(sounds fine to me)<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">{'op vItlh Duj}</div><div class="">ships of high/great unspecified quantity</div><div class="">(sounds equally fine to me)<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Go figure.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">~ Dana'an<br class=""></div>
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