tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jun 14 07:07:24 1998
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Re: Relative clauses
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Relative clauses
- Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:10:35 -0400
From: William H. Martin <[email protected]>
>This transitivity thing can be madenning. The {-moH} makes an
>intransitive verb transitive, and it makes a transitive verb
>ditransitive, but Okrand resolves that by making the subject of
>teh root verb the indirect object of the suffixed verb.
>Meanwhile, {-lu'} takes the spot of a subject, but is it the
>subject of the verb {lan} or is it the subject of causation?
>
>I tried to use it for the subject of {lan}, but the grammatical
>construction Okrand has for {-moH} on a transitive verb changes
>the subject of the root verb to the indirect object of the
>suffixed verb, which is what you did with {vay'vaD}. We can
>perhaps use the indirect object shortcut if the indirect object
>were first or second person, but in this case, it is third
>person, so that doesn't work, and even if it did, that wouldn't
>let me put a noun as subject of a verb with {-lu'}, even if it
>IS also a verb with {-moH}.
Transitivity, causations, changing to object, no wonder you got confused!
It's really not as complex as all that. Thinking in these terms leads to
errors like the one you made.
First off, {lan} is "place," not "be placed," so you wouldn't need the
{-lu'} in the first place (sic!).
You said, "The {-moH} makes an intransitive verb transitive, and it makes a
transitive verb ditransitive, but Okrand resolves that by making the subject
of teh root verb the indirect object of the suffixed verb."
Ick. Why do you make it all so complex?
Someone made me angry.
jIH vIQeHmoHlu'.
I'm not starting with {jIQeH jIH} and altering something. When I see the
initial sentence, I first notice that the subject is indefinite. That's the
very first thing I notice. Since the subject is indefinite, whatever other
non-oblique noun is there has got to be the object (provided we're not
talking about something which, in English, IS ditranstive). Well, in my
example, {jIH} is the only candidate. So it MUST be the object. So, I put
it first.
>From that point on, I treat {-lu'} as if it were the subject. It usually
ends up near the end, anyway. So I translate a new sentence with the
thought of {jIH} being the object, and {-lu'} being the subject. That leads
me to {vIQeHmoHlu'}.
No bother with transitivity, no worries about changing this to that, and it
gives you the right answer. Once I figured {-lu'} out in my early days of
learning the language, I had no problem with it whatsoever. It seems quite
natural to me. The only thing I ever disliked about it was the clash
between {-lu'} and {-laH}. Seems as if Klingons themselves had the same
problem, hence the slang suffixes {-luH} and {-la'}.
As for the EXCEEDINGLY RARE occurrence of {-moH} on verbs which already have
objects, if you get confused, try recasting.
SuStel
Stardate 98447.4