tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Mar 12 12:50:42 1999

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



jey'el wrote:
> 
> mujang charghwI' 'utlh:
> 
> > But what if you wanted to say "I teach linguistics."?
> >
> >  1. HolQeD vIghojmoH.
> >
> >  2. ?puq vIghojmoH.
> >
> >  3. puqvaD jIghojmoH.
> >
> >  See? 3 would be a lot clearer than 2.
> 
> maQoch.   I don't see it as clearer, without further context.   "I teach for
> (the benefit of) the child."   It seems similar to the following examples
> (nothing canon; I just made them up):
> 
> ?DuSaQ SumvaD jIghojmoH.  "I teach for the nearby school."
> ?qumvaD jIghojmoH.   "I teach for the government."
> 

I'm wondering if we're making too much of one verb.  It may well be that 
/ghoj/ and /ghojmoH/ have different objects, but that this is not
necessarily 
true of other verbs when /-moH/ is added.  We know that some of the
words in 
TKD and KGT which appear to be made of a common verb plus suffix are in
fact 
an entirely differnt verb (eg. /lo'laH/).  Maybe /ghoj/ and /ghojmoH/
are the 
same sort of thing.  Or maybe a common error has gotten relexified: I
know
actual people who use 'learn' to mean 'teach' (as in "I'll learn you to 
sass your elders").  Maybe this happened with /ghoj/.

I'm proposing (and hoping) that for the majority of verbs, adding /-moH/
has the regular and predictable result of adding a new noun role to the
verb without changing any of the old ones, but I am certainly open to
the
idea that some verbs are exceptions to the rule (of course, if there
turn
out to be more exceptions than not, I'll have to trash the rule!).

-- ter'eS



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