I want to say: "how many ships are there ?"

Do I say {Duj 'ar tu'lu' ?} ?

Or do I say {Duj 'ar lutu'lu'} ?

Does the new insight on {'ar}, "outweight" the "pedantic" flavor of the {lutu'lu'} ?

Or is our beloved {tu'lu'} too tough a nut to crack, even for the newly revealed {'ar} knowledge, thus being able to survive it ?

Duj 'ar tu'lu'?

tu'lu' doesn't "outweigh" the new rule. When you use tu'lu', you don't conjugate, so the issue never arises. Before we got the new rule, using tu'lu' was one of the few safe ways we could deal with the 'ar plurality question, because tu'lu' ignores plurality.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name