tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 29 11:20:44 1994
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Re: -moH Ponderances
>Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 13:45:02 -0500
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "...Paul" <[email protected]>
>-moH makes an intransitive word transitive, yes? The object becomes the
>noun which is becoming the verb (ie. Say' 'oH, it is clean, becomes
>'oH vISay' jIH, I cause it to be clean).
>Does this prevent -moH from being used on transitive verbs? If I wanted
>to say, "I caused him to drop it", as it stands, I think I would have to
>re-cast it as "'oH chagh ghaH 'e' vIqaSmoH", "I caused to happen that he
>drops it".
>What would be the implications of "chaghmoH"? What would be the object,
>the person dropping, or the object being dropped? Where would the other
>word go? Or should I just shut up and get to class before I realize that
>it says in the TKD that -moH can only go on intransitive words?
I don't know of any rule that says -moH can only go on intransitive verbs,
nor do I believe one exists (I used -moH on transitives myself). The
problem of double-objects was done to death on this list quite some time
ago. I don't think there's a cut-and-dried answer as to what happens in
all cases to the subject of the base verb and its object; I think it may
need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. For example, I recall a point
of contention between me and Guido#1, in that I supported
puqvaD yInQeD vIghojmoH
For "I teach the child biology", and he pointed out that substituting other
verbs led to sentences that didn't make sense. This doesn't bother me too
much; I'm willing to accept that this "solution" is nt a solution at all
but simply something that works sometimes (OBTW, I think it's safe to say
that ghoj is transitive, and ghojmoH is a listed word, so here's proof that
-moH on transitives is permitted). You may sometimes need to recast using
"'e' qaSmoH" and such tricks. There may be more general answers, but if
so, I don't think we know them yet.
Are the archives of this list available? I think so. Maybe you should
check into them.
>..Paul
~mark