tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 03 20:18:33 1999
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Re: RE: KLBC : revised bang bom mu'
I just want to focus briefly on two phrases.
ja' charghwI':
>> qaSopmoH
>
>I cause you to eat.
>
>> targhvaD qaSopmoH
>
>I cause a targ to eat you. That is the only valid translation I
>can see. It fits the grammar Okrand has shown us. No other
>translation does.
I don't see why you don't accept simply adding a beneficiary to the
{qaSopmoH} idea without drastically changing the intent of the phrase.
Why do you deny that "I cause you to eat for the benefit of the targ"
can be a valid translation?
>> Only one of them doesn't make any sense to me,...
>
>Which one?
{targh qaSopmoH} is right on the edge of making sense. The longer I
look at it, the more sense it makes -- until just before it becomes
sensible enough for me to accept, and then I lose it. I can't yet
make the familar "prefix trick" work well with {-moH} this way.
>> ... and another seems to
>> suggest two possible meanings, based on whether I'm considering a
>> transitive {Sop} or an intransitive one.
>
>I don't understand why you think we'd be using one indirect
>object indicated by {-vaD} and another one indicated by a prefix
>shortcut with no direct object. That would be highly irregular.
They're not happening simultaneously. They are two different ways
of interpreting a phrase. If you're talking about my eccentric use
of "prefix shortcut" to describe how I view the way {-moH} works,
be aware that I'm explicitly stretching the concept beyond the way
Okrand has explained it. (I'm not contradicting anything he said,
just proposing an underlying mechanism that generates exactly the
same things he explained while also generating other things we see.)
>> Since transitive verbs
>> like {DuQ} can generally be used without an object, I do see a real
>> potential for ambiguity in a word like {qaDuQmoH}.
>
>Unless there is a direct object, I can only interpret this as "I
>cause you to stab".
But adding a beneficiary of "heart" changes your interpretation even
without putting in an explicit direct object. That's the part I'm
having trouble accepting -- that you completely discard the earlier
interpretation when a {-vaD} shows up.
-- ghunchu'wI'