On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 at 14:38, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
The {'op} is defined as "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity", and in the Ca'Non example of Skybox 7 it is used as {'op SuvwI'} i.e in front of a countable noun which doesn't have the plural suffix. The relevant part of that sentence is:
{DujvamDaq 'op SuvwI' tu'lu'bogh po' law' tlhIngan yo' SuvwI' law' po' puS}
Suppose we say {'op na'ran Soppu' qeSHoS}. Then this could mean either "the fox ate some/an unspecified quantity of an orange", or "the fox ate some/an unspecified quantity of oranges".
Perhaps one could argue that based on the Ca'Non example of the Skybox 7, "the 'op before a singular noun is to be interpreted as referring to a plural number of that noun". But I don't know if one could argue that, since in this Ca'Non example, interpreting the {SuvwI'} as being singular is impossible. Because, if interpreting the {SuvwI'} as being singular was possible, then that would mean that "the klingon vessel pagh has some/an unspecified quantity of a warrior", i.e. on the pagh happen to serve some of the most skilled legs/arms/DaynguHDu'/whatever of a warrior in the klingon fleet.
I think that {'op} works like {Hoch} and {pagh}. One piece of evidence pointing to this is that we have {HochDIch}, {Hochlogh}, {paghDIch}, {paghlogh}, {'opDIch}, and {'oplogh} (the last two having been revealed recently for Alice in Wonderland). If that's the case, then {'op} followed by an explicitly plural noun means "some of the X's, taken collectively", and {'op} followed by a noun which isn't explicitly plural means "some X's, considered individually". I think if you want to express some part of something, the {'op} follows the noun. {'op na'ran Soppu' qeSHoS} "the fox ate some of the oranges, considered individually" {'op na'ranmey Soppu' qeSHoS} "the fox ate some of the oranges, considered collectively" {na'ran 'op Soppu' qeSHoS} "the fox ate some of the orange" Of course in star trek everything is possible, on the other hand
though, I think that one could come to the following conclusion with regards to the {'op}:
Placing the {'op} before a countable noun which has no plural suffix, could mean either "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity of that noun (singular)" or "some, an unknown or unspecified quantity of a number of that noun". While placing the {'op} before an uncountable noun can only mean ""some/an unspecified quantity of that noun (singular)".
Of course, I don't know for sure if this conclusion would be correct..
But now let's get back to the fox..
If I write {'op na'ranmey Soppu' qeSHoS}, then this obviously means ""the fox ate some/an unspecified quantity of oranges". But my problem is that this is ambiguous in the following way:
Did the fox walk in the house, find an unspecified quantity of oranges and ate them all ? Or did the fox walk into the house, found 40 oranges and ate some of them ?
And if the fox indeed ate only some of the oranges, then why not write {na'ranmey 'op Soppu' qeSHoS} ? After all, we *can* write {pItSa' HochHom Soppu' vIghro' tIQ} for "the ancient cat ate almost all of the pizza".
Those aren't analogous. The analogous thing would be {pItSa'mey HochHom} (with an explicitly plural noun), which would probably mean "most of the pizzas". -- De'vID