tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 23 16:22:10 2002
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Re: A -moH suggestion AND Re: agentive -wI'
ja' SuStel pIv:
>Gee, the only verb suffix between the verb and /-wI'/ in charghwI''s
>excellent list of 85 words is /-moH/.
>
>It's almost like . . . ahem . . . verbs with /-moH/ have a . . . cough,
>cough . . . status equal to that of . . . harumph . . . root verbs. Almost
>as if . . . ahem, cough . . . they're considered to be . . . cough . . .
>separate concepts . . . cough, harumph . . . .
ngoDvam vItu' je jIH. DaH jabbI'ID ngo' 'ay' vImuch:
>From: Marc Okrand <[email protected]>
>Newsgroups: msn.onstage.startrek.expert.okrand
>Date: Sunday, November 30, 1997 11:23 PM
>Subject: Re: chenmoH, ja'chuq, etc.
>
>[...]
>
>A problem comes in because some of these forms (that is, some of these verb
>+ suffix combinations) are so common, they seem to, in the minds of some
>Klingons anyway, act as if they were simply verb and not verb + suffix at
>all. This seems to happen only when the suffix in question is -moH
>"cause." Maltz reports having heard both quv'eghmoH "he/she honors
>him/herself," which follows the expected order (verb-Type 1-Type 4: quv "be
>honored," -'egh "oneself," -moH "cause") as well as the weird quvmoH'egh
>"he/she honors him/herself," in which the Type 1 suffix -'egh "oneself"
>follows the Type 4 suffix -moH "cause," an impossible formation unless the
>speaker is considering the verb to be quvmoH "honor" and not quv "be
>honored." Speakers who do this seem to be aware that they are breaking the
>rules, so they are doing it for rhetorical effect. (It has the same sort of
>feeling, perhaps, as if someone were to say in English "Don't cellular phone
>me this afternoon" or "I've been postnasal dripping all morning" or "It's
>lightninging and thundering outside" or, to follow the Klingon example,
>"He/she self-honors.") If this sort of thing happens a lot, maybe, in time,
>the language will undergo some sort of reformation; maybe -moH will become a
>Rover. Or quvmoH and similar forms will become simple (though two-syllable)
>verbs. But neither is the case yet, and while some speakers of Klingon may
>treat them as such, the wisest course is to leave such things to the poets
>and keep -moH in its Type 4 position.
Qochbe' SoH, 'op tlhInganpu' je. maQoch net chaw'law'.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh