[Tlhingan-hol] "up to" or "as many as"

[David Trimboli]

On 7/12/2013 7:37 AM, Felix Malmenbeck wrote:

 > *From:* De'vID [de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com]
 >
 >> Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before
 >> breakfast.
 >>
 >> toH, rut nIQ vISoppa' jav DuHbe'bogh ghu' vIHarpu'.
 >>
 >> What's a good way to express the concept "as many as", "up to"?
 >
> My "feel" for the Klingon language is that there is probably sort of
> set phrase for this, similar to {X Q law' Y Q puS}, but that's
> impossible to guess.

 > I think your sentence rather gets the idea across; the fact that you
> sometimes think of six such things sort of implies that you'd also
> sometimes think of five or four, unless there's some reason to think
> you'd do it in bunches of six.
>
> You can make a longer phrase explaining {not DuHbe'wI' vIHarbogh law'
> law' jav DuHbe'wI' law' puS}, or use {'aqroS}, but I suspect that would
> severely change the focus of your statement, though; your point is that
> the impossible things you believe are surprisingly many, not that they
> are few.

Whenever this line is paraphrased, the "as many as" is always left out 
anyway.

>> toH, rut nIQ vISoppa' jav DuHbe'bogh ghu' vIHarpu'.
>
> I think you probably want the {rut} to modify {vIHarpu'} rather than
> {vISoppa'}, by comparison with {bortaS bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay'.}.

Also get rid of the {toH}. It is not a general expletive; it means 
discovery: "Aha!"

> Also, {jav} after {DuHbe'bogh}.

No, I wouldn't do that. {DuHbe'bogh ghu'} is a more fundamental idea 
than {jav ghu'} in this statement.

rut jav DuHbe'bogh qech vIHarpu' nIQ vISoppa'.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/