Re: agentive -wI'

["David Trimboli" <SuStel@hotmail.com>]

From: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke@cpan.org>

> I've got a wee question about -wI'.  In The Klingon Dictionary, I see
> examples of it which are all of the form VERBROOT-wI'.  However, can one
> have other verb affixes?

I see no reason why not, with one exception:

> ?HoHlu'wI' -- he/she who is killed

There has been debate on this before.  The problem here is that while /-wI'/
turns the verb into a noun representing the original doer of the verb, with
/-lu'/ the verb HAS no doer.  /-wI'/ doesn't magically start to refer to the
verb's object.

> And just maybe some shade of meaning could be imparted by pronoun
prefixes,
> a` la Iroquois semi-nominals?
>
> DughojmoHwI' - he/she who teaches you(singlular)

Okrand says (HolQeD 3:3 I think) that prefix-verb-maybesuffixes-ghach
doesn't work; I tend to believe that prefix-verb-wI' doesn't either.  What
is */jIghojwI'/?

> And while we're at it, what's "teacher"?  ghojmoHwI'?  Would that argue
for
> allowing -wI' with other verb affixes, at least in lexicalized cases?
> (Assuming "ghojmoH" is lexicalized.)

Who cares if it's lexicalized?  Okrand put verb+suffix combinations in the
dictionary to assist the English word lookup, not to represent what Klingons
consider indivisible words.  There's no reason these don't work.
/ghojmoHwI'/ makes perfect sense.

SuStel
Stardate 2143.4