Regarding the problem we recently had with {'ar}, Okrand answered: Plural if the questioned noun can be singular or plural (it lacks a plural suffix) and the translation is “how many?”; singular if the questioned noun is something that can’t be counted and the translation is “how much?” So {Duj ’ar DIlegh?} “How many ships do we see?” {bIQ ’ar wIlegh?} “How much water do we see?” -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/NewWordsQepHom2019
Am 15.11.2019 um 07:36 schrieb mayqel qunen'oS:
Plural if the questioned noun can be singular or plural (it lacks a plural suffix)
Does this mean, that the questioned noun *can* have a plural suffix ?
Meaning we can say {Dujmey 'ar DIlegh ?} ?
No, I'm sure it's not,because that would contradict the rule of TKD, 6.4: "Finally, {'ar} "how many? how much?" follows the noun to which it refers. It can never follow a noun with a plural suffix ({-pu', -mey, -Du';})." So you could restate that phrase into "The plural suffix is not used on a noun in front the word {'ar}, but the noun phrase with 'ar is treated as plural if the noun is countable and singular if the noun is not." -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.klingonisch.de http://www.klingonwiki.net/Word/-ar
On 11/14/2019 5:04 PM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote:
Regarding the problem we recently had with {'ar}, Okrand answered:
Plural if the questioned noun can be singular or plural (it lacks a plural suffix) and the translation is “how many?”; singular if the questioned noun is something that can’t be counted and the translation is “how much?” So {Duj ’ar DIlegh?} “How many ships do we see?” {bIQ ’ar wIlegh?} “How much water do we see?”
So we now have a mass-noun detector. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Nov 15, 2019, at 08:06, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 11/14/2019 5:04 PM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote: Regarding the problem we recently had with {'ar}, Okrand answered:
Plural if the questioned noun can be singular or plural (it lacks a plural suffix) and the translation is “how many?”; singular if the questioned noun is something that can’t be counted and the translation is “how much?” So {Duj ’ar DIlegh?} “How many ships do we see?” {bIQ ’ar wIlegh?} “How much water do we see?”
So we now have a mass-noun detector.
And we seemingly have {nIn} and {bIQ} confirmed as mass nouns, if they weren’t already definitively known to be mass nouns. Have we ever had canonical information on whether mass nouns can take plural suffixes? I suppose at least with {-mey}, that could always just carry a “scattered all about” reading, similarly to how “waters” would in English.
participants (4)
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Hugh Son puqloD -
Lieven L. Litaer -
mayqel qunen'oS -
SuStel