tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat May 13 10:25:40 1995
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Transitivity
I originally posed a question regarding the transitivity of Klingon verbs
being determined by which set of pronomial verb prefixes is used. I then
thought that Klingon grammarians MIGHT not consider the terms transitive and
intransitive at all but only look at whether a verb has an object or no
object, the terms MO uses in TKD. A lot of discussion has shown me that
people out there are really thinking.
We have seen that many Klingon verbs can be considered by English grammarians
to be either transitive or intransitive; stative verbs do NOT take an object
and modify their subject.
Now, let's look at the verb suffix <-moH>. <chen> means "[something] takes
form" while <chenmoH> means "build [something], i.e. make [something] take
form." <chenmoH> is NOT a separate word, although entered in the dictionary
separately. It IS a verb root plus a suffix. In conclusion, <-moH> can and
often does make an apparently intransitive verb by English-speakers'
standards transitive.
peHruS