tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 11 16:25:35 1999

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

ter'eS wrote:

: 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.

jatlh Voragh:

> Offensive or not, it may be exactly how this verb works.  Okrand has 
> always said that he was trying to create a natural-feeling language, 
> not necessarily a perfectly logical one without any irregularities 
> or surprises.
 
> Possibly.  However, checking my notes I realized that, outside of the 
> noun {ghojmeH taj} "boy's knife" (lit. "knife for learning"), Okrand 
> has never used {ghoj} "learn" and used {ghojmoH} "teach, instruct" in 
> just one expression, with and without a Type 7 suffix:

	batlh qaghojmoHpu'. 
	It has been an honor to instruct you. CK 

	batlh qaghojmoH. 
	It has been an honor to instruct you. PK

> Judging by *solely by canon*, we know for certain that the direct 
> object of {ghojmoH} is the person instructed or taught, NOT the 
> information being imparted.

Actually, we don't know that for certain. The verb does not have a stated
direct object - it has a prefix for a second person singular object, but it
is not stated. This could mean *either* the direct object is "you", *OR* the
"prefix trick" is being applied to a verb with no object. Without further
examples, there is no way to tell.

> This may be why he added "instruct" to  the definition in TKD: 
> Whereas in English we can say "I teach children", "I teach 
> mathematics" or even "I teach the children mathematics" or 
> "I teach mathematics to the children", we can only say "I 
> instruct the children".  *"I instruct mathematics" is 
> ungrammatical.  To talk about the information being imparted, 
> we have to rephrase this:  e.g. "I am a mathematics instructor".

> So, as of now we don't actually know whether

	?tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH
	 I teach Klingon

	?puqpu'vaD tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH
	 I teach the children Klingon

	?batlh tlhIngan Hol qaghojmoHpu'
	 It has been an honor to teach you Klingon (using the "prefix
trick")

> are grammatical or not.  I hope they are since I have used 
> {ghojmoH} this way myself on occasion, but now I'm not so sure.  
> Even the Ca'Non Master is sometimes startled by what he finds!


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian

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