tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 15 08:14:16 2000
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Re: RE: (KLBC) {moj} with 2 objects
Following is one of those common, if perhaps a bit
unnecessary, recurring arguments about ditransitive verbs.
Why do I think it is unnecessary? Read on.
On Mon, 14 Feb 2000 17:50:58 -0700 "Andeen, Eric"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> jatlh ghaHbe'wI':
>
> > I have one doubt with regard to the verb {moj}-"to become".
> > I've always seen it with just one object, and the actor is
> > the one becomed. Let's see:
>
> > TKD p.22 {yaS vImojpu'} "I became an officer"
> > {yaS DImojpu'} "we became officers"
>
> > TKW p.5 {bogh tlhInganpu', SuvwI'pu' moj, Hegh}
> > "Klingons are born, live as warriors, then die"
>
> > TKW p.177 {wa' jaj 'etlh 'uchchoHlaH tlhIngan puqloD;
> > jajvetlh loD nen moj}
> > "the son of a Klingon is a man the day he can first hold a blade"
>
> > In these three examples the subject of the verb is the one who
> > is becomed, so there's no possible confussion. But, what happens
> > when the subject cause something to become into another thing?
> > In this case would appear an actor, the thing becomed from, and
> > the new thing becomed to. Let's imagine in English:
>
> > "I've caused Lursa to became an actress"
> > Subject: I, Object becomed from: Lursa, becomed to: actress
I really think we are trying to overwork {-moH}. It has a
primary function that it serves quite well and we all agree
on it. If you bring something to a state, then you cause
that state. {-moH} works great on stative verbs.
pa'vam tujmoH qul.
The fire causes this room to be warm.
But can you really CAUSE Lursa to become an actress? What?
She tried dating you and found you so hideous that she ran
screaming from your region of the nation and ran off to NY
to become a professional actress just to insure that, since
she then will become famous and can justify hiring
bodyguards, then she'll be assured of never having to speak
to you again? What do you MEAN when you say you caused
Lursa to become an actress? Just because you can cram those
words together in English doesn't mean that you have
accomplished the task of having a meaningful thought that
can then be translated into another language.
Do you really understand the meaning of the statement: "I
caused Lursa to become an actress."? To me, it sounds like
abstract shorthand for something that has meaning, though
the statement itself does not sufficiently explain itself
such that it can be translated without resorting to
reference to all the material behind the shorthand. This is
not a statement. It is an incomplete story. It would be
like trying to translate into English {ghobchuq loDnI'pu'}
without explaining the story behind it.
I think we massively overuse the concept of causation in
English. I honestly believe that the Klingon {-moH}
deserves a little more restricted use. Just use it for what
it does well.
DawI' mojmeH lurSa' vISIgh.
Face it. Lursa will make her own choice about what she
becomes. You merely influence her.
> > I would translate it as:
> > {DawI'Daq lurSa' vImojmoH}
> > Subject: jIH, object becamed from: lurSa', becomed to: DawI'
>
> > I don't even know if this sentence is right!
> > These are just suppositions I do...
> > Also, even if it is correct I have another question: the object
> > becomed to must be marked using {-Daq} or {-vaD}? Is the object
> > to become a place to arrive or a beneficiary?
>
> <-Daq> is only used for the physical concepts of motion or location, so it
> doesn't work here. <-vaD> has been suggested for this sort of thing, but
> there are problems.
Just to catch up new folks who have not been through this
before, Okrand has provided us with only one or two
examples of {-moH} added to verbs that already had direct
objects. In those cases, he used {-vaD} for the entity
being caused to do the action and left the original direct
object as the new direct object.
In this case, you'd follow that pattern to say:
lurSa'vaD DawI' vImojmoH.
The problem is, this is really ugly. Krankor doesn't like
it and he pulls a lot of weight, which is okay because he
has EARNED the right to pull a lot of weight. He argues
that since the usual use of {-moH} turns the entity being
caused to do the action into the direct object, now, we are
being very strange doing things this way, changing that
entity instead into the indirect object.
I have less problem with this grammar than Krankor does,
but I agree that Okrand has never explained this explicitly
and the few examples we have are all ugly enough that
without an explanation or more examples, we are probably
better off abandoning the idea that we know how to add
{-moH} to a verb that already has a direct object.
Meanwhile, I find this remarkably easy to do. It is simply
very rare that I even WANT to add {-moj} to a transitive
verb, and I write a lot of stuff on a wide range of topics,
so if this really was a burning need for a way to express
things in Klingon, odds are that I'd be bumping into it more
often. I'll admit that sometimes I do it just on a lark, if
anything to rattle someone's cage who doesn't like this
construction, even though there is canon to support it.
A more interesting example is:
I teach Maltz science.
The only reason this is more interesting is that we have a
word in English that is missing from Klingon. Klingon
doesn't really have a word for "teach". Instead, it has a
word for "learn" and the common translation for "teach" is
{ghojmoH} -- to cause to learn.
So, we assume that {ghoj} can take a direct object (though
I'm not certain that we have any canon to support this
assumption). I personally suspect that {ghoj} is
intransitive and {HaD} is the transitive equivalent and
that this is why we use {ghojmoH} and not {HaDmoH} and
{ghojwI'} and not {HaDwI'}. I notice that Okrand tends to
make these kinds of similar words in the language so that
they have the same meaning, but use different kinds of
direct objects or have no direct objects, like the
difference between {ja'} and {jatlh} or between {ghel} and
{tlhob}, etc.
So, I'll actually throw in another odd perspective and say
that I honestly believe that {ghoj} is intransitive and its
transitive synonym is {HaD}, so my first choice would be to
say:
QeD HaD matlh. vIghojmoH.
Perhaps, if I want these more tightly linked, I'd say:
QeD HaDmeH matlh vIghojmoH.
I like this in that it is a little ambiguous as to whether
{matlh} is the subject of {HaDmeH} or the object of
{vIghojmoH}. Meanwhile, I really want it to function as
both, so you can take your pick of which verb gets the
implied pronoun and which one actually gets {matlh} as its
noun.
So, even in this fairly common English example, I find an
easy way to not have to put {-moH} on a verb with a direct
object.
> > Of course, I've said it before, perhaps all the whole question
> > is a misinterpretation I've done ,or something someone has solved
> > before, but I don't know how to express {moj} as a transitive verb.
>
> You've come across one of the stickier areas of Klingon grammar, and I can't
> really give you an answer. The problem is not just <moj>, but any transitive
> verb that gets <-moH> added to it.
>
> The following are all simple and uncontroversial:
>
> Sop matlh - Maltz eats.
> qagh Sop matlh - Matlz eats qagh.
> matlh SopmoH Qugh - Kruge makes Maltz eat.
I agree with another post that says that this last example
is not quite as clean as the first two. I'd really like to
see canon examples of times when Okrand has used
potentially transitive verbs with {-moH}. In particular, it
might be illuminating in terms of revealing verbs that we
thought were transitive, but actually might be stative, as
I suspect {ghoj} to be.
> The problem comes when we want to say "Kruge makes Maltz eat qagh." The
> subject is clearly Kruge, but what is the object? Is it Maltz, or is it the
> qagh? What gets done with the other one? There are basically two ideas about
> this, one suggested by charghwI', and the other by HoD Qanqor. I generally
> lean toward Krankor's idea, but neither one is certain enough to reccommend.
> If you're interested, look for Krankor's column in HolQeD about three issues
> back.
The problem, of course, is that my ugly suggestion has a
couple canon examples while Krankor's has zero examples and
instead takes a flying leap at a loophole in the grammar
where nouns can go at the beginning of a sentence if they
are neither subject nor object. Meanwhile, that loophole
suggests that they typically have Type 5 noun suffixes,
which is exactly what {-vaD} is.
I suspect that Okrand was playing around with the idea of
ditransitives and came up with the solution of making one
of the objects the indirect object and using {-vaD} on it,
so he did it with the rare ditransitive verb {pong} and
also did it with a transitive verb with {-moH} added to
make it ditransitive, but he didn't really think long and
hard about the consequences of this or how inconsistent it
was with other examples of the grammar.
Whatever the case, he never pushed the point and never got
back to it to make a clearer explanation, so we are
probably best served by looking for other ways of stating
that which we are tempted by laziness to cast as adding
{-moH} to a verb that already has a direct object.
You really can drive a nail with a paintbrush, but it is
very messy, hard on the brush and you can do a much better
job with a hammer. Next time you are tempted to use {-moH}
on a verb that already has a direct object, resist. There
are better tools in the drawer.
> So if we can't use <-moH> in this case, what can we do? Find another way to
> say it! In this case, that's not too dificult. To use your example, we could
> say:
>
> DawI' moj lurSa' 'e' vIraD - "I compelled Lursa to become an actor".
If that indeed is the right verb to use. It is certainly a
clear expression of one of the stories that "I caused Lursa
to become an actress" is the shorthand for. {SIgh} might be
a good verb. {chup} might be another. It all depends on
what you meant by the English expression in the first place
and I, for one, do not believe that the English expression
was very well formed. It simply fails to express meaning.
As a beginner, I think one of the most common mistakes is
to fail to express meaning in your English sentences before
trying to translate them into Klingon. This is similar to
the common temptation to translate poems and song lyrics.
You start working word for word instead of backing up and
dealing with the meaning behind the words. If you don't
really know the meaning of the English, you will not
translate it well. Your job is not to translate the words.
Your job is to translate the meaning behind the words.
> pagh
> Beginners' Grammarian
>
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