less than / more than

[Jon]

How do you translate something like I have less than 10 children or  I have more than 10 children?

I know comparatives use this construction: A Q law' B Q puS, but I couldn't make it fit.

[Qunchuy]

Try phrasing it as my children are more/less numerous than ten:

puqwI' law' law' wa'maH law' puS
puqwI' puS law' wa'maH puS puS

The using law' or puS as the Q word might make it seem awkward, but really it isn't as bad as it looks. To someone who is reasonably fluent in Klingon, the law'/puS formula is just a natural-sounding pattern, and doesn't interfere with the verb of quality.

But if you still don't like the way it looks, you can replace the law'/puS pair with HoS/puj or nIv/QIv or even Doq/SuD.

puqwI' law' nIv wa'maH law' QIv I have more than ten children.

[Jon]

Thanks for that. I see it now, literally My children are more numerous, ten is less numerous, and the converse is My children are more few, ten is less few (I think). I definitely need more practise with this construction.

And for I have the most children, I would convert it to My children are most numerous or puqwI' law' law' Hoch law' puS.

I don't recall seeing an example with least, but presumably I have the least children could be puqwI' puS law' Hoch puS puS and also Hoch law' law' puqwI' law' puS.

[ter'eS]

I must disagree with Qunchuy's suggestions. puqwI' law' law' wa'maH law' puS seems like nonsense to me: ??My children are many, the abstract number ten is few.  You are literally comparing apples and oranges, and I don't think it works. I can't think of any way to express "more than X quantity".  The "more than" concept in a case like this is basically an adverb, and we know that Klingon doesn't have a lot of ways to use adverbs, especially at less than the level of a whole phrase.  Besides, given that Klingons "may be inaccurate but are never approximate", why would you need to?  Why doesn't your speaker just tell us how many children he has?

You can make comparisons between similar entities, which in this case would be you versus someone else: puqwI' law' law', puqlI' law' puS. I have more children than you (lit. My children are many, your children are few). (-lI' 'your').

Using the same pattern, "I have the most children" is actually a comparision between you and everyone else. Jon's sentence puqwI' law' law' Hoch law' puS. is good, so long as you remember that Hoch (='all, everyone, everything') isn't representing a number ('all') but refers to 'everyone else's children'. puqwI' law' law' Hoch puqpu' law' puS might be clearer, except that Hoch puqpu' can mean "all the children" as well as "everyone's children".

[Qunchuy]

puqwI' law' law' wa'maH law' puS seems like nonsense to me: ??My children are many, the abstract number ten is few.  You are literally comparing apples and oranges, and I don't think it works.

I'm surprised you find this construction so unobvious. It seems unequivocally correct to me. Maybe it would help to point out that wa'maH doesn't have to be interpreted as the abstract number ten here.

Numbers are used as nouns. As such, they may stand alone as subjects or objects or they may modify another noun. (page 54)

For example, when Captain Kruge says wa' yIHoH kill one to his lieutenant on the Genesis Planet, he isn't ordering the death of an abstract number. The my children are more numerous than ten phrasing works the same way.

Using the same pattern, "I have the most children" is actually a comparision between you and everyone else.

In my mind, A Q law' Hoch Q puS is just a formula without a straightforward literal translation. It can't actually be a comparison between A and everything, because "everything" includes A. However, there isn't a reference to "everything else" in the words either. It's just an oddball bit of grammar that carries the superlative meaning.