tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 15 08:24:32 1996

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

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

Another answer from HolQeD

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

I was reading through the latest HolQeD over the weekend, and found what I
thought was a VERY interesting new development.

Some of you old-timers may remember the big arguments we've had in the past
over "double-objects."  There are several situations in which these arise,
but one that gave us some headaches was "what happens when you put -moH on
a transitive verb?"

Adding -moH to an intransitive is well-ordered and neat: Qong HoD, the
captain sleeps.  Add -moH to it, and you get "HoD QongmoH puq", the child
makes the captain sleep.  The subject of the -moHless sentence becomes the
object of the -moHified one.  No problems.

But what if you have a sentence that already has an object, and then add
- -moH to it?  The example we used to talk about was something like "yInQeD
ghoj puq"/the child learns biology.  What if the officer teaches the child
biology?  We can make "teach" from "learn" with -moH: we get ghojmoH (which
is indeed listed as "teach").  But what happens to the nouns?  If "'utlh"
is the subject, as teacher, and the subject of the -moHless sentence (puq)
moves to become the object, what becomes of the previous object?

Several alternatives were discussed, and likely it's the case that no
single answer obtains in all cases.  But one answer that was discussed (and
which I liked) seems to have been accepted as canon now.  Look at HolQeD
5:2, p. 14.  A Skybox card is quoted:

qorDu'Daj tuq 'oS Ha'quj'e' tuQbogh wo'rIv.  tuQtaHvIS Hem.  ghaHvaD quHDaj
qawmoH.

The sash that Worf wears is a symbol of his family's house.  He wears it
proudly as a reminder of his heritage.

(note the canon spelling of Worf's name, and also I believe the first time
we've seen *Okrand* use -'e' to disambiguate the head-noun of a relative
clause).

Look at the last sentence.  We have "qawmoH" for "remind" (that's
sensible)... but look how the nouns are arranged:  There's an elided "'oH"
as the subject (the sash), and the object is "quHDaj"/his heritage
(apparently a new word, since I can't find it.  I presume its resemblence
to quHvaj/dandruff is co-incidental, though given the sash's position on
the shoulder... I digress).  Note that quHDaj is also the object of the
- -moHless version of the sentence, quHDaj qaw ghaH (he remembers his
heritage).  The subject of the -moHless version has been moved to the
indirect object position: ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH: it reminds his heritage to
him.

This was one of the options explored, I recall, and it's gratifying to see
an example of it in canon.

~mark

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface

iQB1AwUBMepiksppGeTJXWZ9AQHfbQMAkyoT/pFUsusHRoYu+g6g0fMSAgrgZeQk
wctY9plDMGQcuwyogd6t1p5pILgzsMLkHx5cwPsfxOSsunGcOeOvvEpNVkYzeOth
uTwxrBAMyLq89vgnSGwWNL0Kr9BYZl/Z
=w1HR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Back to archive top level