tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 09 16:46:35 2012
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Semantic roles with -moH... again
I'm getting really confused now. Sometimes I think you're approaching Klingon like Wilkins' Philosophical Langauge, thinking that it should make intuitive sense to any intelligent being. At other times, I think you're treating it like a naturally occurring language that has to be thoroughly studied to be understood. I can't tell if you're switching between two modes of thought without realizing it, or if I'm just failing to understand your argument.<div>
<br></div><div>For example, you wrote, "<span style>{QeH} without {-moH} does not take an object because its meaning does not include an object, but the meaning of {QeHmoH} does." I disagreed, because I thought you were taking the philosophical approach. After all, you focused on the *meaning* of {QeH}. I see the meaning of a word and its grammatical structure as two separate things.</span></div>
<div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif">There is nothing about the concept of anger that determines the grammatical structure of any verb that represents it in any language. </font><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">To demonstrate this, I offered hypothetical alternatives for the structure of {QeH}. </span><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif">It could be an intransitive verb (as in Klingon). Some languages have a transitive verb, but assign different thematic roles to the object. I gave two hypothetical examples, roughly lining up with theme (*jupwI' vIQeH) and topic (*bomvam vIQeH). Other languages could have an ergative verb (*jIH muQeH). </font><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">All these hypothetical uses deal with the concept of anger, but the concept of anger does not favor one use over the others. The grammatical structure of the word is independent of the mea</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">ning.</span></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">When you say "the meaning of {QeH} does not take an object", what I hear is, "only one grammatical structure is possible since semantics determines grammatical structure". The terms you use to describe Klingon seem to consistently have that underlying assumption:</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">- </font><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">the meaning of {QeH} does not take an object</span></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">- </font><span style>the meaning of {QeHmoH} does</span></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">- </font><span style>No </span><span style>rule forbids us from putting objects on verbs of quality, except the </span><span style>rule of "that makes no sense."</span><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font><br><div class="gmail_quote">You can see why I thought you assumed that the semantics of {QeH} and {-moH} drives their grammatical structure.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">But then, you also say, "<span style>I'm not using semantics to devise a rule for -moH; I'm using semantics to illustrate the use of -moH." All you're trying to do is describe how {-moH} works. Okay, but your description still doesn't account for Qov's example:</span></div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span style><br></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>1. Qong Qang.</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>2. Qang vIQongmoH.</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style><br>
</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>Someone trying to use your semantic description of {-moH} would be confused at this point. You wrote, "</span><span style>The subject changes from whatever </span><span style>semantic role it has to CAUSE, and all other arguments the verb takes </span><span style>keep their original role". Since {Qong} has only one argument, it seems {QongmoH} should have only one argument. Instead, it acquires a *new* argument with a *new* semantic role. </span><span style>On top of that, the new object ends up being the old subject pretty consistently. That's an interesting pattern that deserves explanation.</span></div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span style><br></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>All the explanation you've given so far is that the "meaning" of a verb like {QeHmoH} can take an object and that "i</span><span style>t's an object not because it's the object of my causing, but because it's an object of the action as a whole." I'm not sure how to use this. If your semantic approach works, you need to clarify this part of your argument.</span></div>
</div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style><br></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>What I think you're saying is that the new object is the semantic role of beneficiary. When you apply {-moH} to a transitive verb, that verb already has an object; all its slots are full, so the beneficiary has to be marked with {-vaD}. But when you apply {-moH} to an intransitive verb, it "has ample room" for an object, so you can fill the slot instead of using {-vaD}. Is this your argument?</span></div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span style><br></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style>bI'reng</span></div>
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