On 11/29/2018 9:27 AM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
SuStel:
I think the difference is that paq'batlh is talking about the quantity of Klingons, while you are using a number of as a synonym for some. A number of is English idiom, and you're trying to literally translate the idiom. What paq'batlh translates is not an idiom but literal. ok, don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to argue. I'm genuinely trying to understand..
The original sentence was: {tugh, Hargh SuvwI'pu'vam mI'} soon, a number of these warriors will fight
When I wrote this sentence, I had in mind "soon, some (i.e. an unknown quantity) of these warriors will fight".
I just can't see the difference between my sentence, and the paq'batlh one; is the difference that the paq'batlh sentence specifies the quantity, by saying "an equal number" ?
Anyway, I'm not trying to say that my original sentence is correct; in fact in the first message of this thread, I wrote "I feel that they are wrong, but I can't understand why".
And I'm perfectly happy to be writing {'op SuvwI'vam} or {'op SuvwI'pu'vam} for "some of these warriors".
But I just can't see, how the paq'batlh sentence and the one I wrote, are actually any different.
*mI'* doesn't mean /an unknown number./ It means /number./ In the /paq'batlh/ sentence, *lutlhej tlhInganpu' Hem mI' nIb,* the key difference is the presence of *nIb.* Without it, the sentence means /the number of proud Klingons accompany him/ — whatever that means. You're not saying /some/ in any way. If you wanted to say /an unknown number,/ and you didn't want to use *'op* for some reason, you could say *tugh Hargh SuvwI'pu'vam mI' Sovbe'lu'bogh*/Soon an unknown number of these warriors will fight a major fight./ But that sounds to me like you're making a point that you don't know how many warriors there will be, rather than just being vague about their numbers. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name