This is a question that came up over on the Discord server. I thought it would be good to open it up to more opinions and have the discussion archived on the mailing list.
How would you say "two klorns of bloodwine"? For example, "I want to drink two klorns of bloodwine"?
How would you say "a jug of water" (or "three jugs of water", etc ), meaning water served in a water jug. (That is, how would you refer to the water in the water jug, and not the jug itself, bearing in mind that {bIQ bal} is defined as "water jug" in KGT.)
Can the noun-noun construction (N1-N2 = N2 of the N1) be used here?
(For the sake of the argument, let's say that context alone isn't sufficient to distinguish between a jug full of water from an empty water jug.)
bIQ is a mass noun, so saying bal bIQ jug-water
would also be a mass noun. Without special rules, you couldn't
make it countable. In English, water is usually a mass noun, but
it can be made countable when referring to a serving of water, so
that you can say three waters. I do not assume you can do
that in Klingon without word from Maltz. But you can certainly say
bal bIQ vItlhutlh vIneH I want to drink jug-water; I
want to drink water from a jug.
Otherwise, I'd go for the lengthier, but uncontroversial, bIQ
ngaSbogh wej bal three jugs containing water/water
contained in three jugs, and cha' tlho'ren muqbogh 'Iw
HIq bloodwine having a volume of two klorns.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name