tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 06 17:31:41 2005
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Re: Klingon WOTD: chaQ (verb)
- From: "QeS lagh" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingon WOTD: chaQ (verb)
- Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 11:30:49 +1000
- Bcc:
ghItlhpu' Voragh:
> qogh vItuQmoHHa'pu'
> I've taken off my belt (HQ 2.4)]
jang lay'tel SIvten:
>HQ 2 is one of the issues I don't have, so I can't check this, but
>shouldn't {-Ha'} precede {-moH}?
I also lack this issue, so I can't confirm or deny this example; but in most
cases, yes. That being said, Maltz has heard {quvmoH'egh} (check out
Okrand's MSN posting of 30 Nov 1999) - but like most intentional
ungrammaticality, that sort of thing is usually for emphasis or rhetorical
effect.
>{qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'} means to me "I undressed the belt" (i.e., "I took
>clothes off the belt"), which is bizarre.
Remember that with double-predicate causative verbs, if there's only one
predicate present it can be either the person or thing who is made to do the
action *or* the person or thing ultimately affected by the action. Either
can stand as the object. In {qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'}, you can either interpret
it as is (which makes no semantic sense), or assume that there's a sort of
"silent" {ghaH} in the sentence. Klingon grammar as it stands doesn't allow
it to be explicit. In ??{qogh ghaH vItuQHa'moHpu'}, either {qogh} or {ghaH}
ends up isolated, with no syntactic function.
What I usually find myself doing on verbs like this is picking one of the
nouns to be the focus, in a sort of proximate/obviative distinction - much
like Cree does obligatorily. (Although that's perhaps overly complicating
it...) So:
{ghaH'e' qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for him, I made him take off his belt."
{qogh'e' vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for the belt, I made him take it off."
{qogh'e' ghaH vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for the belt, I made *him* take it off."
I usually do the same thing with {pong}: {ghu'e' {ghawran} ponglu'pu'} "as
for the baby, he was named Gowron".
Savan,
QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian
not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' qan je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
- Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
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