tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 01 16:30:40 2002
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Re: A -moH suggestion
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: A -moH suggestion
- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 21:30:39 GMT
jatlh SuStel:
> I'd like to suggest that /-moH/ shouldn't cause your brain to do backflips
> when trying to understand it. These two sentences should "feel" the same
> when you read them:
>
> Qong yaS
> QoymoH yaS
I like this approach. I'll add the classic example to illustrate your point. In
English, we have the two verbs "teach" and "learn". Klingon only has {ghoj}.
There is no verb stem meaning "teach". Apparently, Klingons do not see teaching
as a function other than causing the student to learn, so for "teach" we use
{ghojmoH}.
Any time you have a sentence in English using the verb "teach", you'll use
{ghojmoH} as if that were a simple verb. There have been people in the past who
argued that {ghojmoH} was a separate verb than {ghoj + -moH}, but Okrand has
clarified that this is not the case. The only reason {ghojmoH} is in TKD's word
list at all is because it is the equivalent of the English word "teach". If you
were looking up "teach" in the English-Klingon side of the dictionary, if
{ghojmoH} wasn't there, you might not think to look up "learn" and add {-moH}
to what you find.
The only difference in usage between {ghojmoH} and any simple verb stem for a
verb that normally takes a direct object is that if you want to add a verb
suffix of a Type numbered earlier than 4 (since {-moH} is a Type 4), you need
to follow the normal rules for ordering the suffixes and place those suffixes
between {ghoj} and {-moH}.
So, to say, "I'll teach you again," you'd say {qaghojqa'moH.} You would not say
*qaghojmoHqa'*
There is a bit of a problem if you try to say, "I'll teach you Klingon
language." It looks like "you" and "Klingon language" are both objects of
{ghojmoH}. In this case, the verb "teach" is "ditransitive", meaning that it
has two objects, though Klingon doesn't really have a place in its grammar for
two direct objects. That's when it is good to remember that {ghojmoH} is {ghoj}
plus {-moH}.
When I teach you, I cause you to learn. I don't cause the Klingon Language to
learn. The cleanest, least controversial way to say, "I'll teach you Klingon
language," is to split it up into smaller sentences, like:
qaghojmoH. tlhIngan Hol wIHaD.
I'm choosing to say it this way because even while I'm teaching the Klingon
language, I'm studying it, too. I study it in order to teach it, even if it is
something I no longer need to learn. I see this as a difference between the
verbs "study" and "learn".
"Study" does not imply the kind of newness to the topic that "learn" does. I
can study a poem hundreds of times, even if I only learn it once.
As a tangent, I could see someone referring to a bad teacher as {HaDmoHwI'}
instead of the usual {ghojmoHwI'}, since it implies that this is a person who
causes one to study, but not necessarily to learn.
Also, just to describe something there is one odd bit of canon for (but please
don't take this so seriously as to let it confuse you), some would argue that I
could say:
SoHvaD tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH
or
tlhIngan Hol qaghojmoH.
If indeed this is the way it is done, as the one odd canon example would
suggest, my advice is that you should not work too hard trying to figure out
why it works. It is weird. Each of these two examples are weird. The only way
you can really deal with them is to either ignore them and pretend that they
don't exist, or accept them on blind faith that this is the way Klingons
handle "ditransitive" situations with verbs using {-moH} and accept the grammar
as exceptional, like the comparatives. It doesn't make sense. Just accept it.
Of those options, I suggest that any beginner should just ignore them and
pretend like they don't exist. If someone says something like this to you, just
reply {nuqjatlh?} and they'll probably restate it as two sentences and then
you'll know what they really meant.
charghwI'
'utlh