tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Dec 23 03:05:21 1994

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Re: vay' and lu'

charghwI' jabbI'IDvam wIHevpu':
> 
> According to Marc Ruehlaender:
> 
> jabbI'IDvam nulabpu' marqoS:
> 
> > > \ I think vay' is the only way to express an unspecified
> > > \ OBJECT, or could you simply use the ...-it prefixes?...
> > > 
> > > -marqoS
> 
> > ... but then vay' IS the only way of expressing
> > _unspecified_ (in the above sense) objects, while
> > unspecified subjects could as well be expressed by -lu'.
> > 
> > Is that so?
> > 
> > 				Marc 'Doychlangan'
> 
> This is a point of contention. If you believe that {Xlu'} = {X
which I actually DON'T !
> vay'}, then you are right. My own suspicion is that, as the
> language was being developped, Okrand may have recognized that
> the grammar allowed objects to be optional, while subjects were
> necessary, and this created problems when translating English
> passive voice. 
> 
[deletia]
> This suspicion combines with that one weird TKD example
> {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} = "it made him/her willing to die" to make
> me think that the {-lu'} moves the "willingness" implied by
> {-qang} from the subject "it" to the object "him/her" in a way
> that {HeghqangmoHpu' vay'} would not have done. In fact, I think
> that "it made him/her willing to die" is really better stated
> as "He/She was caused to be willing to die." The latter better
> expresses the sense of an unspecified subject, and it happens
> to be in the passive voice.
> 
> Of course, only Okrand knows for sure, and so far, he is not
> talking.
> 
I hope you don't mind my interrupting your discussion, me
being a newbie on this list, but I would like to make some
points with regard to the shifting of the focus of suffixes:

As ghuyDo' already pointed out, in intransitive verbs, there is
no Object to transfer the meaning of suffixes to, but also in
some transitives there arise problems:

paq vIlaD 		I read the/a book
paq vIlaDlu'		s.o reads the book/the book is read
paq vIlaDqang		I am willing to read the book
paq vIlaDqanglu'	s.o. is willing to read the book
			*the book is willing to be read

Also there is evidence for -moH to switch the original
subject to object while introducing a new subject:
in 4.2.4.

tIjwI'ghom vIchenmoH	I form a boarding party
*tIjwI'ghom vIchen	?
chen tIjwI'ghom		the/a boarding party takes shape

So one _might_ assume that

Heghqanglu'pu'		s.o. was willing to die
HeghqangmoHpu'		he/she made him willing to die

whith the remark, that the 'it' in 4.2.10 is meant
to represent s.o./s.th. (if you follow my line of
argument)

In this context, am I right that 

Qong			he sleeps
QongchoH		he's fallen asleep
QongeghmoH		he makes himself fall asleep
			(maybe countin' the heads of the
			enemies as he chops them off...
			now HERE comes a candle... :-)

Qapla'	
				Marc 'Doychlangan'


--
----------------------------------------------------
Marc Ruehlaender	[email protected]
Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
----------------------------------------------------

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