tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 11 00:08:36 2003

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RE: lugh'a' mughghachvam?

From: Klingon Warrior [mailto:[email protected]] 
Subject: RE: lugh'a' mughghachvam?

>But my understanding of /-moH/ is that it changes the condition of the
verb (a change from describing to more of an action).
>

This is only true with the stative verbs (verbs of quality - verbs with
definitions that begin with "be").  You cannot generalize that to -moH
because there are plenty of examples of action verbs maintaining action
but changing the actor and the type of action.
Sup - He jumped
vISupmoH - I made him jump
For the stative verbs, it is true that adding -moH makes them less
descriptive and more active.  But that has little to do with what you
are trying to to Dal.  I agree that Dal is descriptive and DalmoH is
active, but I don't agree with how you have translated DalmoH.

>I don't think we can apply the same technique with /Dal/ as we can with
/open/ because there are different ways of saying the same thing in
English.  (---hope that just made sense:)
>

Not a bit.  Please try again.

>Take for example the verb /web/ that is more of an adjective (be
disgraced).  How would you say to someone in Klingon, "You disgraced
me!"  Well, you can't with a verb that describes the subject (be
disgraced).  Adding /-moH/ to the verb turns it from "be disgraced" into
"to disgrace."  Right?  Hence, "you disgraced me," becomes /chowebmoH/.
Same with the verb /bel/ (be pleased).  To say "please" in Klingon, you
might translate a sentence like this, /DubelmoHchugh/ (if it pleases
you).  /bel/ has now changed from a descriptive verb to a common verb
(to please, please).  What do you think?

I agree with this.
web - be disgraced   webmoH - make disgraced (to disgrace)
bel - be pleased     belmoH - make pleased (to please)

>Dal (be boring)  DalmoH (to bore)?

I don't agree.
Dal - be boring      DalmoH - make boring (not to bore)

You cannot think of -moH as a suffix that pulls the active root out of
the descriptive verb.  It can turn a descriptive verb into an active
verb, but not by finding a root verb in the English.  Rather it makes it
active by saying someone has caused the situation.  I have said (in my
earlier post) that you can only pull the root out for the adjectives
that end in -ed.  Boring does not end in -ed.  Yet you continue to use
examples ending in -ed and try to compare that to boring.  We agree that
your technique works for words ending in -ed.  Can you find any examples
of stative verbs that do not end in -ed where the root means "to cause
something to be described by the adjective"?  (Now it's my turn to
wonder if that made sense.)

As for your attempt to say, "This event bores me."  There have been some
great suggestions made and recasting is your best bet.  But as a
grammatical exercise in literal translation try...
jIHvaD Dal wanI'vam

Jeremy

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