tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 10 00:20:28 1997

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Re: ja'chuq

David Trimboli wrote:
> We have often wondered whether {ja'chuq} is the verb {ja'} plus the suffix
> {-chuq}, or if it's a single root verb, {ja'chuq}.  Well, Okrand tells us!
> On TKD p. 65, he says, "The verb is made up of {ja'} 'tell,' {-chuq} 'each
> other'; thus, 'confer' is 'tell each other'."

<looks it up>  So he does.  Conveniently overlooking the fact that _tell_
is a ditransitive verb in English.

> The implication would be that {ja'chuq} cannot take an object.  When
> using {-chuq}, you must use the prefix meaning "no object,"  and the
> subject must be plural.  Thus, you cannot say things like {Dup wIja'chuq}
> for "We discuss strategy."  You'd have to say {maja'chuqtaHvIS Duq wIqel}.

I wonder.  We've known since {ghIchlIj qanob} times that Klingon has
ditransitive verbs, even though no mention of them is made in _tKD_.
We still don't know how (if at all) they work if both objects are
expressed by full noun phrases or if neither is third person, but
that's beside the point.  Now _tKD_ 4.2.1 says that the reflexives
and reciprocals of transitive verbs are intransitive verbs, which is
what one would expect.  But by the same token the reflexives and
reciprocals of ditransitive verbs would be (mono)transitive verbs.
As in:

  {SoHvaD De' vIja'.}  `I tell you the news.'
  {De' qaja'.}  ditto  (if {ja'} is ditransitive; it sure looks that way)
  {De' wIja'chuq.}  `We tell one another (_or_ discuss) the news.'

Hrm.  On the other hand, it seems plausible that {ja'chuq} is like {ja'},
which is like {nob}, in that they all have an object (the information
told or the entity given) to which they do not refer by means of a prefix
(because object agreement is used for encoding the addressee).  Which
would lead to {De' maja'chuq}.

(A verb with an explicit object, but with a `no object' prefix?  Well,
that's hardly more awful than a verb with an explicit object and a
prefix which refers to something else as the object, as in {ghIchlIj
qanob}.  Neither should be possible according to _tKD_, but the latter
does happen, and then I think that the former follows.)

> I wouldn't go so far as to do anything with the verb {tuQ} and its
> weirdness (there is canon somewhere supporting the fact that {tuQmoH}
> is a different verb than {tuQ} + {-moH}), I noticed it recently
> somewhere).

So do we say {tuQnISmoH} or {tuQmoHnIS}?

--'Iwvan

-- 
"mIw'e' lo'lu'ta'bogh batlh tlhIHvaD vIlIH [...]
 poH vIghajchugh neH jIH, yab boghajchugh neH tlhIH"
                                  (Lewis Carroll, "_Snark_ wamlu'")
Ivan A Derzhanski  <[email protected], [email protected]>
Dept for Math Lx,  Inst for Maths & CompSci,  Bulg Acad of Sciences
Home:  cplx Iztok  bl 91,  1113 Sofia,  Bulgaria

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