Am 27.11.2019 um 15:05 schrieb mayqel qunen'oS:
Suppose you have a full-grown (or is it fully-grown ?), german shepherd. Would you characterize it as {qovIj} or a {ngavyaw'} ?
Since these are words for alien animals, as I understand, it would be hard to really draw the line. In your example, I'd say ngavyaw, because a big dog is larger than a small one.
And lets say, you have a {ngavyaw'} puppy..
Would you characterize it, as a {ngavyaw'} or a {qovIj} ?
Or would you play it safe, and say {ngavyaw' ghu} ?
As you wrote yourself, a ngavyaw' puppy is still a ngavyaw', and a qovIj puppy will be a qovIj.
If you had a {qovIj} which took steroids and grew the size of a small car, how would you say it ?
Since these are words for a specific animal rather than just for the size, I would still use the small er word for the animal, even if it grew large. Compare to Earth animals: if I would say to an alien that "rabbit" is a small animal, and "cow" is a big animal, one should not call the 2-meter giant rabbit as a cow. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/NewWordsQepa2019