On 9 June 2016 at 15:27, Lieven <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 09.06.2016 um 14:06 schrieb De'vID:
I don't see this as a problem at all. The reason {maH}, {vatlh}, {netlh}, {bIp}, and {'uy'} are described in
[...]
and you can't write just {vath} by itself with that meaning.
This is where I see the problem, or why it's confusing for beginners like mayqel. If somebody had asked me to translate "100-year-period" i'd immediately have said {wa'vatlh DIS poH}, following TKD.
Maybe it helps to think of {vatlh} and other "number-forming elements" as "units" like {'uj} or "meter". You can't just say something is or measures {'uj}, it has to be {wa' 'uj} or have some number in front. {vatlh} is like that. It's a unit which happens to consist of ten ones. There's no problem with a formation like {vatlh DIS poH} "century", because it's a unit too. To specify an actual number of years, you need a number in front, like {cha' vatlh DIS poH}. Or you can label a unit with a number, like {vatlh DIS poH cha'maH wej}. If somebody asked you to translate "100-year-period", you should ask whether they mean an actual one-hundred-year-period or a unit consisting of 100 years.
{cha' vatlh DIS poH} "two centuries" makes me think about the question whether this should be translated per definition as cha' [vatlh DIS poH] or more literally {cha'-vatlh [DIS poH]} "200 years period."
chay' pIm cha' ghu'meyvam?
1. One may see [vatlh DIS poH] as the idea of "century". Then, ten centuries are {wa'maH [vatlh-DIS-poH]mey}
qay'be'. We have the example of {cha'maH Hut vatlh rep} "seventeen hundred hours" from Conversational Klingon.
2. Or you may see it as a number forming suffix described in TKD and translate literally as "200-years-period", or even "750-years-period", that is omitting the idea of talking about "centuries", simply years. {cha'vatlh DIS poH}...
For 200 years, there's no practical difference between "two centuries" and "two hundred year period". I think, though, that "two hundred years" is just {cha'vatlh DIS}, and that the {vatlh} and {poH} bookend the {DIS} to turn it into a new unit. For 1000 years, the difference between {wa'maH vatlh DIS poH} and {wa' SaD DIS poH} is the same difference as between "10 centuries" and "one millennium" in English.
majatlhtaHvIS pImchu'be' 'e vIHar, rurmo' cha' qechmeyvetlh. jISaHqu'be'.
chay' mu'tlheghmeyvetlh Dayaj?
{qaStaHvIS vatlh DIS poH SochDIch...} "during the seventh century..."
I think SkyBox established that centuries as dates are labeled, not ordered, so this would be {vatlh DIS poH Soch} not {SochDIch}. But otherwise I don't have a problem accepting that.
{qaStaHvIS wa'maHwejvatlh DIS poH...} "during a period of 1300 years..."
I think {wa'maH wej vatlh DIS poH} is "13 centuries", and "1300 years" would be {wa'SaD wejvatlh DIS} (without {poH}), whereas {wa'SaD wej vatlh DIS poH} (with {poH}) would mean "1003 centuries"! At least, that's what I think the role of {poH} is in these constructions, as a disambiguator for the time unit. -- De'vID