tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 28 09:35:48 1994
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Re: long-winded question
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: long-winded question
- Date: Thu, 28 Jul 94 21:32:12 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "James Lyle" at Jul 27, 94 8:40 pm
Having read ahead to ~mark's excellent response to the latter
parts of this, I'd just like to make a minor point about
earlier parts of it.
According to James Lyle:
>
> ...So I think that in Klingon you would say something like
>
> yuchvaD muSopmoH yaS
>
> for "the officer makes me eat chocolate" (at least it comes out this way
> in human languages that behave similarly). So how do you say "the
> officer makes me hit myself"? I can try
The problem is that {-vaD} is not a general indirect object
marker. It implies that the action of the sentence is being
done somehow for the benefit of the word to which this suffix is
attached. "The officer causes me to eat for the benefit of
chocolate," doesn't quite cut it. I think this example needs
the same solution ~mark suggests for "The officer made me hit
myself." "I eat chocolate" has to become its own sentence
connected by the special pronoun {'e'} to another verb stating
the nature of the cause (He ordered me, or he coerced me...)
...
> It's certain that
>
> qIp'eghmoH yaS
>
> won't work, this must mean something like "the officer makes himself hit
> (something)". Or does it? Help!
It's a weird example, since {-moH} is generally used with
intransitive verbs. If you accept that verbs can be used both
transitively and intransitively (an unpopular viewpoint on this
list), then your sentence becomes, "The officer causes himself
to hit." The verb "hit" has no object. It is sort of like
{yepHa'mo' pum'eghmoH yaS} "Because he is careless, the officer
causes himself to fall." Do'Ha'.
>
> James
>
>
charghwI'