tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 17 09:23:23 1999

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Re: clothing



On Tue, 16 Feb 1999 21:14:17 -0800 (PST) Alan Anderson 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> ja' muHwI':
> >What we have:
> >{tuQ} "wear (clothes)"
> >{tuQmoH} "put on (clothes)"
> >{tuQHa'moH} "undress"
...

> {jItuQmoH} means to me "I dress [someone else]."  Perhaps I help my
> son button his shirt and tie his shoes.  {jItuQHa'moH} is obviously
> "I undress [someone else]."

I've never seen a verb with {-moH} and a no-object prefix in 
canon. Maybe it's out there and I missed it. Meanwhile, it feels 
really strange. The subject is the one doing the causing. The 
object is the one doing the wearing. But there is not object, so 
nobody is doing the wearing, but if nobody is doing the wearing, 
then who am I causing to wear?

I don't see {tuQmoH} as a verb stem. It is {tuQ+moH} and I can't 
quite wrap my mind around {jI<verb>moH}. I don't care WHAT verb 
you are using.

Maybe it is just like the {quSDaq ba'lu''a'?} thing I had such a 
problem with early on. "I cause one to wear." It still looks 
pretty ugly to me. I'd feel more at ease with it with some kind 
of canon example somewhere to tell me my instincts are wrong.
 
> >{waqmeylIj tItuQmoH} sounds pretty silly, because it gives me the funny
> >picture of a pair of shoes wearing pants and a shirt :-)
> >Is there a way to recast that??
> 
> No need to recast.  Just recognize that the {-moH} suffix makes the
> verb talk about *causing* someone to wear (or remove) clothes.

Actually, I like ghunchu'wI''s suggestion of {waqmeylIj 
tItuQchoH} a lot better. I see muHwI''s point.
 
> -- ghunchu'wI'

charghwI' 'utlh



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