tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 12 15:03:46 1999
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Re: -moH Curiousity {was Re: deep structures}
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: -moH Curiousity {was Re: deep structures}
- Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 18:03:44 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Fri, 12 Mar 1999 09:05:59 -0800 (PST) Marc Ruehlaender
<[email protected]> wrote:
> jIja':
> > > otherwise {muHoHmoH} would again be ambiguous, as it could mean
> > > both "She makes (someone) kill me" or, as a shortcut for
> > > {jIHvaD HoHmoH}, "She makes me kill"...
> >
> mujang pagh, ja':
> > Natural languages have ambiguity - this is not Lojban. If you're terribly
> > worried about the ambiguity, just be more explicit. If Maltz is the other
> > person involved, just use <jIHvaD matlh HoHmoH> or <matlhvaD jIH muHoHmoH>.
> >
> in general, I don't mind ambiguity. in fact I recently wrote something
> about not excluding the possibility of a <Noun>-vaD in front of a <Verb>-moH
> being either beneficiary of the root verb or beneficiary of the causation.
> I'm not so sure on what to think about it now, though...
>
> however, I AM concerned about the ambiguity in {DuHoHmoH}. Will I be made
> to kill, or will I be killed? I'd probably have to kill the messenger and
> prepare myself for a nasty feud...
That is my whole point, after all. Meanwhile, I know that I had
a similar interest in unambiguous clarity with {-Daq} in
relative clauses, and I was wrong. Okrand chose the more
ambiguous route. He may do so here.
Meanwhile, IF my suggestion worked, we'd have two unambiguous
expressions:
jIHvaD HoHmoH. "She made me kill him."
DuHoHmoH. "She caused me to be killed."
> this kind of ambiguity essentially renders these expressions useless for
> communication, which is, I believe, one of charghwI's concerns, too.
> You HAVE to be more explicit, in order to be understood.
That's what I believe, anyway.
> well... on nth thought... maybe not... I guess context CAN disambiguate
> even here... it's just all so confusing!
>
> (I will try to go back to finishing the story I'm working on,
> just hope I won't need any bad -moH constructions...)
>
> Marc Ruehlaender
> aka HomDoq
> [email protected]
>
charghwI' 'utlh