tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 19 17:09:19 1997
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Re: peDtaH 'ej jIQuch
jIja'pu':
> 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.
ja' charghwI':
>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 a reasonable argument, but I don't happen to view {-moH}
that way. There's no need to see it as causing "something else"
to "do something". It merely causes an action to take place, and
that action still has the same object it always did. What you
call the "subject of the action which is being caused" I see as
the beneficiary of the action.
I think the argument can be distilled to the use of verb prefixes
and {-moH}. Until we got the example of a transitive verb using
{-vaD} for what would have been the subject of the verb without
{-moH}, your take on what {-moH} does seemed uncontroversial and
quite natural. But now that we *do* see how the apparent dual-
object nature of a {-moH}'ed transitive verb works, and now that
we have many, many examples of the bending of verb prefixes to
indicate the beneficiary instead of the object, I think we need
to rethink what's "really" going on with {-moH}.
Based on the way things like {bIvum/chovummoH} look, it makes sense
to think that {-moH} changes the verb to be transitive. But I make
the argument that the verb's transitivity doesn't really change; it
is still intransitive. "You toil" + {-moH} becomes simply "You cause
to toil." In order to say "You cause me to toil" it would have to
be literally "You cause to toil for me" or {jIHvaD bIvummoH}. But
we also have the "verb prefix shortcut" that can turn this into the
commonly seen {chovummoH}. It only *looks* transitive, but behind
the scenes it's just an intransitive verb with an indirect object.
This way of thinking avoids the "double-object" problem that occurs
when you try to apply {-moH} to a transitive verb while thinking of
it as "subject of the bare verb becomes the object of causation".
The same grammar applies as in the intransitive case, but this time
there is often a direct object that interferes with trying to use the
"shortcut" prefixes.
Now that I've gotten the argument out of the way, I'll suggest a few
more examples of {V-moH} with no object.
{jInguvmoH} -- "I paint."
{jIghojmoH} -- "I teach."
{jIchoHmoH} -- "I edit."
I think these should be just as acceptable as {jISop} and {jInoj}.
-- ghunchu'wI'