tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 16 20:08:15 1999
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Re: -moH Curiousity {was Re: deep structures}
ja' peHruS:
>TKD 'ay'vetlh vIlaDqa'pu'. QeD ghojlaH ghojmoHwI'; ghojwI'pu' ghojbe'.
>ghojwI'pu'vaD QeD ghojlaH ghojmoHwI'.
nuqjatlh? Did you mean {ghojmoHlaH} where you said {ghojlaH}, or are
you really considering a teacher learning science for the students?
>After re-reading TKD's defintion re: {-moH}, I readily see that the DO object
>of a verb with the suffix {-moH} is not being caused to do anything, rather it
>is caused to become something.
Hold on a minute! You're apparently reading more into the "cause to be"
phrase than is really there. It's not "cause to become". And only the
{vIchenmoH} example uses "cause to be". The next example, {HIQoymoH},
doesn't have a "cause to become" idea in it.
>{tIjwI'ghom vIchenmoH} obviously means "I
>cause a boarding party to BE formed."
That's one way to translate it -- in fact, TKD gives that as a possible
translation -- but it even more obviously means "I form a boarding party"
or "I cause a boarding party to take shape."
>I retract any and all statements which
>implied that "The teacher is causing students to BE learned."
Fine, but why do you immediately imply that sort of phrasing next?
>Now, this means that an IO using {-vaD} makes sense to me. {ghojwI'pu'vaD QeD
>ghojmoH ghojmoHwI'} translates as "The teacher causes the science to BE
>learned for the benefit of the students" or "The teacher teaches the science
>TO the students."
Ah, I think I see. This isn't a "become something" sort of idea. It's
merely a passive voice rendering of the {QeD ghojmoH} phrase. As such,
it does come out pretty smooth in the English while still maintaining the
"for the benefit of" idea explicitly. Not bad at all.
-- ghunchu'wI'