tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 15 14:22:45 1994
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Re: -lu'
>Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 15:11:54 -0500
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]>
>On Wed, 14 Dec 1994, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>> >Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 09:43:39 -0500
>> >Originator: [email protected]
>> >From: Jeremy Cowan <[email protected]>
>>
>> >-lu' has always provided problems for me so I would like to encourage
>> >continuation of this discussion. To address some of my specific problems
>> >and to spur further conversation, I would like to ask a couple of simple
>> >questions. I want EVERYONE to reply.
>> >1) How would YOU say, "It made Maltz willing to die"?
>> matlh HeghqangmoH
>Doesn't this really mean, "It is willing to make Maltz die"?
Now now... I'm not sure we have evidence for this (though I think we do)
but generally we've been saying that it could be either. After all, if you
consider "Heghqang" to mean "willing to die", then adding "-moH" to it
makes it causative: to cause someone else to be (willing-to-die). If
anything, it's the other reading ("it is willing to make him die") that's
harder to defend, since it seems to break the order of the suffixes
(i.e. it feels like the -qang should come after the -moH). But since the
suffixes must come in a fixed order, it stands to reason that the word
should mean *either*, to be disambiguated by context.
>If you could tell from context what "it" was, I would translate this as:
>Heghqang matlh 'e' qaSmoH. This is assuming that {qaS} is transitive.
>If they tell me there is no canonical evidence that {qaS} is transitive,
>then I would use: {qaSmo' matlh Heghqang} or {'oHmo' matlh Heghqang},
>depending on whether "it" was an event (like the loss of his honor), or a
>specific object (like DaraQ's agonizer booth).
Huh? qaS is almost certainly intransitive... but qaSmoH is plainly
transitive, since -moH is a transitivizer! So your first sentence would be
a fine translation (and perhaps a way to explicate the ambiguity if someone
got confused). Your other two have bad word-order: qaSmo' Heghqang
matlh/'oHmo' Heghqang matlh: Because of it/because it occurred, Maltz is
willing to die. Aside from the word-order, that's fine.
>Alternatively, if "it" was unknown or unspecified, I would use:
>{Heghqang matlh 'e' qaSmoHlu'}. And if the grammarians jump my case for
>incorrectly using {qas} as a transitive verb, I would come back with:
>{qaSmo' vay' matlh Heghqang}, or {vay'mo' matlh Heghqang}. I can think
>of several other examples, but I guess it really depends on what is
>making Maltz behave that way.
Um, you didn't use qaS transitively. You used qaSmoH transitively, and
that's got to be okay: To cause somethng to occur! Same word-order
problems as above, otherwise just fine.
>My question is - Is {qaS} transitive?
Probably not: that's why we (and you) use qaSmoH to make it transitive
>> ~mark
>yoDtargh
~mark