tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 27 20:24:34 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

KLBC: All Permutations...



>From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 18:13:33 -0500


>>From: [email protected] (Mark E. Shoulson)
>>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 16:49:28 -0500
>>Subject: KLBC:  All Permutations...
>>

>>>vIHmoH:  to cause to move, to move <object>
>>
>>*This* is the transitive "moving".

>Are you sure?  if vIHtaH means "subject is moving", shouldn't vIHmoH be
>something more to do with cause?  Or perhaps this just doesn't work at
>all?

I'm not sure I follow your confusion.  If "vIH" means "subject is moving",
then "vIHmoH" should mean "subject causes object to be moving", i.e. what
we'd say in English: "subject moves object", the transitive use.

>>
>>Not to me; sounds more like "to move badly" or "move wrongly".  I've never
>>seen a "back" meaning to "-Ha'"

>Well, I've always seen -Ha' to be "undo"; I figured the undoing of motion
>would be to move back.  Of course, this kinda blurs when you realize that
>the English is messing me up.  If "vIH" means it moves, and "vIHta'"
>means that it has moved, then wouldn't vIHHa' mean the movement back to
>where it was before it moved?  I have seen the -Ha' arguments, though,
>so I know where you're coming from, but I think this translation might
>work?

Well, "undo" is given as a gloss, but really isn't a good translation in
general, as you can see by Okrand's discussions and examples.  As has been
mentioned before (by me and others more recently), "-Ha'" has two meanings:
one meaning "badly" and other sort of the "opposite" meaning (chu'Ha' for
disengage, QeyHa' for be loose, tungHa' for encourage, etc).  It is this
second meaning that Okrand glosses as "undo", not so much implying that an
action has been done with the unsuffixed verb which is "undone" by the
"-Ha'" version, but that the "-Ha'" version is somehow an opposite of the
original, "undoing" its *meaning*.  That sounds metaphysical, but it makes
sense, especially in the light of the covabulary (wow, neat typo!  I'm
leaving it) we have.  True, "chu'Ha'" does seem to imply undoing the action
of engaging, but that interpretation isn't the only one, and it doesn't
work for other examples, like "yepHa'"/be careless, "yuDHa'"/be honest,
"jotHa'"/be uneasy, "lobHa'"/disobey, "parHa'"/like.... (most of these are
also not the "done badly" meaning of "-Ha'").  All I can say is that "move
back" doesn't work for me.

~mark



Back to archive top level