tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Oct 22 08:30:38 1993

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Double Predicates and tuQ

While I was researching possible evidence for the double-predicate
problem, I came upon an interesting trio of verbs:

tuQ             wear (clothes) (v)
tuQHa'moH       undress (v)
tuQmoH          put on (clothes) (v)

The words are all in TKD.  I'm not entirely positive about their meanings
in all cases, Okrand really did us a disservice by never giving more than a
few words of definition.

Near as I can tell, "tuQ" is a transitive verb whose object would usually
be the clothes worn. So "HIpwIj vItuQ" would be a likely usage.  What are
we to make of "tuQmoH"?  It szeems to mean "to cause to wear" or something,
which conflicts with the simplest interpretation of the translation given.
I'd have guessed that "to put on clothes"/"to dress oneself in..." would be
"tuQchoH" (to start wearing), giving "HIpwIj vItuQchoH" for "I put on my
uniform."  But we have "tuQmoH" instead, which would have made sense if
"tuQ" meant "to be worn", but it doesn't.  There are a few possibilities we
mustn't discount: (1) Okrand, or the printer/proofreader, screwed up, and
it should have been "tuQchoH" or "tuQ" should have been "to be worn" or
something.  These things happen.  (2) "tuQ" is just plain irregular, and
the verbs formed by suffixing it don't mean what you expect.  These things
also happen, though it'd be pretty mean of Okrand not even to mention it
(tho we have something similar in a verb that nominalizes not with "-ghach"
*or* with being left alone: "tay"=="be civilized", but "civilization" is
"tayqeq".  Perhaps "tayghach" is something else, like maybe the process of
becoming civilized.  But I digress.)  If we assume that neither of these
two possibilities are the case, then we appear to have cause to say that
"tuQmoH" can mean "to put [on someone else] (clothes)", and from the
wording of the definition Okrand gives, the *clothes* can be the direct
object.  That would be consistent with the way he uses parentheses
elsewhere.  Of course, if one said that had to be rigidly true then you run
into a problem with "tuQHa'moH" which seems to be defined as "to undress
(someone)", which takes the person as its object, apparently.  But these
are things to think about.

What do you all think?

~mark

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