tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Sep 16 08:08:02 2000
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RE: wa' waQ
jatlh nejwI':
>> ghItlh taD:
> > > The sentence {pab vIghojmoH} is a bit of a problem. You want to say "I
> > > teach them grammar", but "them" and "grammar" can't both be the
> > > object of {ghojmoH} ("teach"). On page 7 of HolQeD Volume 9 Number
> > > 1, there are some suggestions on how to reword this kind of sentence.
> > > One way would be to split it into two sentences: {naDev vIghojmoH}
> > > "I teach them here" or literally, "I make them learn here" {"Laadan"
> > Hol
> > > pab lughoj} "They learn the Laadan language's grammar"
> >
> > I don't yet own a copy of "HolQed" v.9#1 as it is not yet available from
> > KLI
> > and my subscription began with v.9#2.
> >
> > Part of my confusion here arose from having read someone's insistance
> > that {ghojmoH} means not just "cause to learn" (which is how I initially
> > interpreted it) but also to "teach". I can say "I teach Terran languages"
> > in
> > English, but not {tera'ngan Holmey vIghojmoH); since TKD lists {-moH} as
> > meaning "cause to" rather than "cause", this makes sense. The
> > insistance that {ghojmoH} means "teach" lead me to re-interpret {-moH} to
> > mean "cause", which of course makes no real sense in retrospect since
> > that would require something akin to {tera'ngan Holmey lughojlu' 'e'
> > vIqaSmoH}.
>
> Generally, verbs with suffixes are not special words unto themselves, even
> though they're listed in the vocabulary list. For example, {vemmoH} is in
> the dictionary as "wake (someone) up". But it's just the verb {vem} ("wake
> up"), plus the suffix {-moH} ("cause").
Just be aware that the question of what happens to transitive verbs (and their possible objects) when {-moH} is added is one of the murkier aspects of Klingon grammar (and touchiest; we had an ugly blow-up about a year ago over this very topic - in which I was not without fault, sad to say). Anyway, if you are confused by it, it is because no one really knows. The ultimate conclusion at the time was that we just don't have enough information from MO to decide the point.
-- ter'eS
http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000
http://www.geocities.com/weseb_2000