Am 09.06.2016 um 12:01 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:

Although, I cannot understand something.. If someone asks 'oqranD, at the coming qep'a', won't 'oqranD, be able to provide with a clear, specific and unambiguous answer ?

Hehe... You'll understand it when you ask him yourself. :-)

I mean, how come so many years, questions such as this, continue to remain unanswered ?

Well, first of all, there are many many ambiguous and unanswered questions like this, so Okrand would have a lot of work to clarify all of those (most of them were clarified sometimes by later examples, so there was no need to ask him afer a while.) Next, Okrand cannot always answer immediately. He has to think about it first. He usually says he need to think about it first (i.e. look in his notes) and then he may or may not give an answer. It's possible that he forgets, or he just did not find a satisfying answer. It does not work like when you go to a native speaker and ask how to say something. Okrand wants to answer such questions in a way that the answer works with the rest of his set up rules. Sometimes Okrand even does not want to give the answer, so he just explains that "Maltz is not very talkative lately." :-) -- Lieven L. Litaer aka Quvar valer 'utlh Grammarian of the KLI http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher http://www.klingonwiki.net

On 9 June 2016 at 10:33, Lieven <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:

jaj 09.06.2016 ghItlh mayqel qunenoS:

...

We say {vatlh DIS poH} for "century". However {vatlh} is a number forming element, right ?

Why ? Whyyyy ? Whyyyyyy ?

Short answer first:

In the game: Because that's just how it is.

In real life: I guess it's a simple mistake, but...

qatlh qay'? 'ej Qaghpu' qatlh 'e' Dapum? jIyajbe'. It's like saying that because "-teen" is a number-forming element in English (in "thir-teen", "four-teen", ..., "nine-teen"), that it's wrong to have a word "teen-ager". I don't see this as a problem at all. The reason {maH}, {vatlh}, {netlh}, {bIp}, and {'uy'} are described in TKD as "number-forming elements" rather than "numbers" is just to tell you not to use them in a "bare" form (without a number in front) to indicate a number. That is, you write {wa'vatlh} for "(one) hundred", and you can't write just {vath} by itself with that meaning. That doesn't exclude {vatlh} from appearing as an element in non-number terms like {vatlh DIS poH}, or, say, *{vatlh QaS} (I'm just making up this term as an example) to mean "cohort" (in the sense of the Roman military unit of 100 soldiers led by a centurion).

This is not explained more detailed in HolQeD 8.3, where the word for millenium is following the same pattern, {SaD DIS poH}. The hint of saying {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? -- De'vID

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