tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Nov 18 12:23:58 1997
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Re: peDtaH 'ej jIQuch
According to Alan Anderson:
>
> ja' charghwI':
> >jIQoch. vay' tlhuHmoH ghu'. ghu'mo' tlhuHlu'.
> >
> >"It caused him to be afraid." 'e' Daqaw'a'? "It causes one to be
> >exhillerated." 'e' DaHar'a'? tlhuHmoHlu', qar'a'?
>
> We lack immediately understandable words for "subject" and "object", so
> I'll give my grammatical justification in English.
>
> I intend {tlhuHmoH} to mean "it exhilarates" with no object. Not merely
> an indefinite one, but none at all. The subject is supposed to be "it",
> referring to the previously elucidated situation.
I feel quite unsure that this is a possible expression in
Klingon. {-moH} implies that something is the subject of the
action which is being caused. I know of no other setting
(except perhaps certain useage of {-meH}) in which there is no
subject on a verb. There may be no object, and the subject may
be indefinite, but otherwise, each verb needs a subject, and
with {-moH} there are TWO subjects, since causation is itself
an implied verb. One entity is subject of the causation and the
other entity is the subject of the action of the verb.
This is why I had a problem with this in the first place. I
understood what you were trying to do. I simply didn't think
you could do it, any more than I could use {-lu'wI'} on a verb
to create the English "-ee" suffix, as in "employee" as opposed
to "employer" (which would be the "-er" suffix implied by
{-wI'} without {-lu'}.
Like you, I had an interesting idea which probably doesn't
work. I doubt your idea here is more valid than mine was there.
As I said, I think both ideas were interesing and neither
likely works.
> >chaq jImuj. jISovchu'be'.
>
> qechwIjvaD bImuj. qechwIj DaSovchu'be'pu' neH.
ghobe'. vIyajchu' 'ach jIQoch.
> -- ghunchu'wI'
charghwI'