On 8 August 2016 at 11:14, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:

ghunchu'wI':

"This one" doesn't make much sense in Klingon with the number {wa'},
especially when what "one" is counting hasn't been stated, and I can't
figure out what "day of this one" would mean.

I can't understand why {wa'vam} doesn't make sense.

The word "one" in English has multiple meanings, only one of which
applies to the Klingon {wa'}.

If I'm in a store and the Klingon storekeeper demands to know which of
several similar items I want, I point and say {Dochvam}, not
*{wa'vam}. In a police line-up, when I'm asked to identify the
perpetrator, I point and say {nuvvetlh}, not *{wa'vetlh}. In English,
"one" acts like a pronoun referring to a thing or person previously
mentioned. It doesn't have this function in Klingon.

I wouldn't be too quick to say this. TKD 5.2:

Numbers are used as nouns. As such, they may stand alone as subjects or objects or they may modify another noun.

mulegh cha' Two (of them) see me. (mulegh they see me, cha' two)

wa' yIHoH Kill one (of them)! (wa' one, yIHoH kill him/her!)

Now, the important thing here is that the examples demonstrate using numbers in a partitive sense. That is, you're pointing out a certain number out of a whole. If this is the only way numbers can be used as nouns, then you can't use the *wa'vam and *wa'vetlh examples above. But the text doesn't make it explicit that this is the only way to use numbers as nouns.

That said, I agree that mayqel's use of *wa'vam is odd, and probably doesn't work.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name