<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="">Thanks for your thoughtful response. It does look like, as you suggest, Okrand has not been sufficiently consistent for rules to be derived with certainty.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I could read {Qapla’meywIj Hoch vIta’ta’} as “I have accomplished t<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="">he whole of my successes</span>.” He’s speaking of all of his successes as one grand accomplishment. Apparently, he felt that honor would have made that accomplishment impossible, suggesting that the accomplishment is a higher priority than honor. No single success would have been more important than honor, but the whole collection of them held more moral mass than the abstract inconvenience of honor. Those who would speak of the importance of honor are, by his perspective, smaller minds with smaller goals.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">As a Klingon, perhaps I would be content to be such a smaller mind.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Anyway, as you suggest, the finer points of the use of {Hoch} and {HochHom} have yet to be laid out for us clearly. Would that Maltz be more forthcoming.</div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<meta charset="UTF-8" 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>pItlh</div><div><br class=""></div><div>charghwI’ ‘utlh</div><div>(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 6, 2022, at 10:33 AM, SuStel <<a href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" class="">sustel@trimboli.name</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/6/2022 10:13 AM, Will Martin
wrote:<br class="">
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:E8F4DC3B-88B7-4AF4-ACF2-E35C40264D58@mac.com" class="">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.</blockquote><p class="">We've seen <b class="">Hoch X</b> and we've seen <b class="">X HochHom,</b> but I
don't think we've seen <b class="">HochHom X.</b> More in a minute on <b class="">X
Hoch.</b><br class="">
</p><p class="">We know the rules for <b class="">Hoch X</b> because Okrand told them to
us. <b class="">Hoch X</b> means <i class="">each X, taken individually</i> when X
has no plural suffix on it, and it means <i class="">all X's, taken
collectively</i> 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.<br class="">
</p><p class="">We've seen <b class="">X HochHom</b> in canon and its use seems obvious.
It means <i class="">most of X, the majority of X.</i> 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.</p><p class="">We have, for example, the phrase <b class="">Hoch botlh</b> in <i class="">paq'batlh,</i>
which doesn't mean <i class="">each center;</i> it's being used as a
noun-noun construction, because the translation is <i class="">center of
all.</i></p><p class="">As for <b class="">X Hoch,</b> we have an example of that in <i class="">paq'batlh:<br class="">
</i></p><p class=""><b class="">jIlay'DI' reH batlh jIpabchugh<br class="">
Qapla'meywIj Hoch vIta'ta' 'e' DaHar'a'<br class="">
quv vuv nuv pagh ghajbogh neH</b></p><p class=""><i class="">Did you think that my word of honor<br class="">
Would have carried me this far?<br class="">
Honor is for those with nothing to lose!</i></p><p class="">I interpret <b class="">Qapla'meywIj Hoch</b><i class=""> </i>as <i class="">all my
successes,</i> to correspond to the English <i class="">this far.</i> It
seems to be exactly identical in meaning to <b class="">Hoch Qapla'meywIj.</b>
The grammar here remains unexplained. All 21 other instances of <b class="">Hoch</b>
in <i class="">paq'batlh</i> follow known rules.<br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:E8F4DC3B-88B7-4AF4-ACF2-E35C40264D58@mac.com" class="">
<div class="">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.<br class="">
</div>
</blockquote><p class="">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.</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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