tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 22 20:29:00 1997

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Re: understanding {-moH} (was Re: peDtaH 'ej jIQuch)



ja' HomDoq:
>I think charghwI's reasoning goes more like
>
>{nguvlu'} something is painted
>{vInguvmoHlu'} I cause something to be painted

I doubt very much that this is what he's thinking.  I'm sure he wouldn't
try to translate anything with a {-lu'} on it as having a first-person
subject the way you did with your second word.

>obviously this is at least ambiguous but wasn't the one example from
>TKD with {-moHlu'} of a similar kind? I may misremember, though.

Page 45: {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} "it made him/her willing to die"

This example might point to an ambiguity with {-moH} and type 3 suffixes.
It applies {-qang} to the object, while PK gives {jIbwIj vISay'nISmoH}
"I have to wash my hair" where {-nIS} applies to the subject.  It's most
likely a feature of the way {-lu'} works, but it's not clearly explained
anywhere.

In every example of {-moH} I've seen, it's the object that is being made
to do something.  {-lu'} didn't affect that feature in the example above.

Whether that object is the equivalent of the English "direct" or "indirect"
object is the topic of my theory which attempts to explain why {-moH} on
transitive verbs works the way it does.  I propose that {-moH} doesn't do
anything to change the transitivity of a verb, and it doesn't affect the
verb's original object, if any.  The agent being made to perform the action
is the beneficiary of the {-moH}'ed verb.

-- ghunchu'wI'




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