tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 11 12:23:00 1999

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Re: -moH Curiousity {was Re: deep structures}

ghItlh jey'el:

>  
>vuDwIj neH qaja'.  
>Do'Ha' tlhe'bogh chovnatlhmey rurchu'bogh *canon* mu'tlheghmey'e' DISovbe' 'e'
>vIHar. 
>
>chovnatlh vIleghchugh: {puq ghojmoH qup}, 
>     {puq} 'oH *direct object*'e' 'e' vIwuq. 
>loQ rur {HIQoymoH!} "Let me hear (something)!" (TKD p. 38).
>
>chovnatlh vIleghchugh: {puqvaD tlhIngan Hol ghojmoH qup}, 
>     {tlhIngan Hol} 'oH *direct object*'e' 'e' vIwuq. 
>loQ rur {yaSvaD nab QIj} "He/she explains the plan to the officer" (KGT p.
>149).
>
>vIja'qa': vuDwIj neH vImuch.  ngervam toblu'pu'be'.

Good try; but I don't think so. The central idea in my recent post on /-moH
is that the existing noun roles/slots of the verb don't change, but that 
/-moH/ adds a new role to the verb.

I understand your first example, /puq ghojmoH qup/ as 'The elder causes
(someone) to learn the child'.  /puq/ stands in DO position, but is not
a sensible object of /ghojmoH/.  It also offends my understanding of how this
construction works to see /puq/ performing the same role in two different
sentences (as the beneficiary of the action of teaching), but in one
case with a suffix and in the other without.

Here is my reasoning: in the simple sentence /Hol ghoj puq/, the language
is the object of /ghoj/; it is the thing being learned.  Adding /-moH/ to
the verb doesn't change this; the object of /ghoj/ remains the thing
being "caused to be learned".  The object doesn't change to the person
being "caused to learn".  To express that new role, MO has shown us that
we must use the suffix /-vaD/: /puqvaD Hol ghojmoH qup/.  These
relationships hold true even if the direct object isn't expressed:
/puqvaD ghojmoH qup/ 'The elder teaches the child'.  The difference
between this and your first example is that your example makes the child
the information being imparted, while in mine, the child is the one
receiving (unspecified) information.  In English, we can use the same
sentence for both ideas, but in Klingon, they're different.

Your example /HIQoymoH/ is not really relevant to this.  This is an example
of using the "prefix trick" to render an indirect object using a regular
subject-object prefix. /HIQoymoH/ is an idiomatic shorthand for /jIHvaD
yIQoymoH/.  Consider the following progression:

/SoQ vIQoy/  I hear the speech.
/jIHvaD SoQ DaQoymoH/ You cause me to hear the speech.
/jIHvaD SoQ yIQoymoH/ Let me hear the speech.
/SoQ HIQoymoH/               "
/HIQoymoH/ Let me hear (it)

You can see that the direct object of /Qoy/ didn't change.  The replacement
of /jIHvaD/ with /HI-/ can in fact only happen when there is a 3rd person
direct object and 1st or 2nd person indirect object.

-- ter'eS

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