tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Feb 06 17:31:41 2005

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Klingon WOTD: chaQ (verb)

QeS lagh ([email protected]) 

ghItlhpu' Voragh:
>    qogh vItuQmoHHa'pu'
>    I've taken off my belt (HQ 2.4)]

jang lay'tel SIvten:

>HQ 2 is one of the issues I don't have, so I can't check this, but 
>shouldn't {-Ha'} precede {-moH}?

I also lack this issue, so I can't confirm or deny this example; but in most 
cases, yes. That being said, Maltz has heard {quvmoH'egh} (check out 
Okrand's MSN posting of 30 Nov 1999) - but like most intentional 
ungrammaticality, that sort of thing is usually for emphasis or rhetorical 
effect.

>{qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'} means to me "I undressed the belt" (i.e., "I took 
>clothes off the belt"), which is bizarre.

Remember that with double-predicate causative verbs, if there's only one 
predicate present it can be either the person or thing who is made to do the 
action *or* the person or thing ultimately affected by the action. Either 
can stand as the object. In {qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'}, you can either interpret 
it as is (which makes no semantic sense), or assume that there's a sort of 
"silent" {ghaH} in the sentence. Klingon grammar as it stands doesn't allow 
it to be explicit. In ??{qogh ghaH vItuQHa'moHpu'}, either {qogh} or {ghaH} 
ends up isolated, with no syntactic function.

What I usually find myself doing on verbs like this is picking one of the 
nouns to be the focus, in a sort of proximate/obviative distinction - much 
like Cree does obligatorily. (Although that's perhaps overly complicating 
it...) So:

{ghaH'e' qogh vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for him, I made him take off his belt."
{qogh'e' vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for the belt, I made him take it off."
{qogh'e' ghaH vItuQHa'moHpu'} "As for the belt, I made *him* take it off."

I usually do the same thing with {pong}: {ghu'e' {ghawran} ponglu'pu'} "as 
for the baby, he was named Gowron".

Savan,

QeS lagh
taghwI' pabpo' / Beginners' Grammarian


not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' qan je
(Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
     - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh

_________________________________________________________________
Are you right for each other? Find out with our Love Calculator:  
http://fun.mobiledownloads.com.au/191191/index.wl?page=191191text

Back to archive top level