tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Sep 16 09:05:30 1996

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Re: nIDwIj wa'DIch

qob (Bill Willmerdinger) writes:
>Are there any other Klingon words that tale [sic] double objects?

Lots of them!  The causation verb suffix {-moH} has given us fits for 
ages because of this feature.

Start with "I drink the ale."  {HIq vItlhutlh}.  No problem.
Now add {-moH}: "I cause him to drink the ale."  Suddenly we have two 
objects, "him" and "ale", for the verb {tlhutlhmoH}.  How do we do it?
We now have two answers, and they seem to agree with each other.

The {pong} example says the recipient/beneficiary of the naming gets
the suffix {-vaD}, which is pretty reasonable, and the name being 
given is the unmarked "real" object.  The other example, from a recent
Skybox card, says {tuQtaHvIS Hem.  ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH.} and is 
translated as "He wears it proudly as a reminder of his heritage."  It
works the same way; the recipient/beneficiary of the "remembering" is 
marked with {-vaD} and the thing being remembered is "the" object.

So double-object verbs apparently can have two different things fill 
the role of "direct" object, depending on whether or not the other
object is present.  "I cause him to drink" is {ghaH vItlhutlhmoH}, but
"I cause him to drink the ale" is likely {ghaHvaD HIq vItlhutlhmoH}.

-- ghunchu'wI', vIDIllu'meH jIghun 'ej jIbelmeH tlhIngan Hol vIHaD
-- Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist

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