tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jun 01 10:04:09 2007

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Re: KLBC: Some more clueless questions

MorphemeAddict ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol taghwI']

In a message dated 6/1/2007 10:42:30 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email protected] writes:

> > I don't understand whether tuQmoH and tuQHa'moH are
> > transitive or
> > intransitive.
> >
> No body else does either!  My personal opinion is that
> {tuQ} and the unattested {tuQHa'} are transitive, and
> refer to a person wearing or taking off articles of
> clothing, eg. ?{cheSvel vItuQHa'} "I take off my
> jacket."  That would make {tuQmoH} and {tuQHa'moH}
> mean that the subject is causing _someone else_ to
> wear or take off clothing: "I cause him to put on his
> coat."  The problem is that we don't really know how
> transitive verbs behave when you add {-moH}: If they
> have objects, what happens to them?  What happens to
> the original subject of the unsuffixed verb, the one
> now caused to act by the new subject?  Everyone has
> their opinions, and some very heated arguments have
> arisen from it.  Most of us just avoid the issue.
> 
> Or, {tuQ} and {tuQHa'} could be intransitive and
> simply mean "to wear clothes" and "to take off
> clothes".  But then we couldn't refer in the same
> sentence to what items of clothing are involved. And
> the versions with {-moH} would still refer to causing
> someone else to be dressed.  The only difference is
> that, we do know what happens to intransitive verbs
> and {-moH}, so we could accomodate the former subject
> and current causee in the phrase: ?{puq vItuQmoH} "I
> dress the child/make the child put on clothes."
> 
> Also, the concept of "becoming dressed", which "put on
> clothes" seems to imply, really would be better
> expressed by the suffix {-choH}: ?{jItuQchoH} "I'm
> putting on clothes."
> 
> The point is that the definitions of these words are
> inconsistent with each other, their written
> definitions, and what little we know of how {-moH}
> works.  
> 
> 
> 
Given these definitions from TKD,
tuQ                                        wear (clothes) (v)
tuQHa'moH                             undress (v) [[p.111]]
tuQmoH                                 put on (clothes) (v)

it is clear to me that all three are transitive, with object of {tuQ} being 
the clothing and the object of the other two being ambiguous,  since one can 
paraphrase them as "cause (someone) to wear/not wear (something)", and only one 
of the two slots can be filled at a time.  One work-around is to use both 
{tuQ} and {tuQmoH}: 

yIvbeH tuQmeH, puq vItuQmoH. = I dressed the child so that he wears a tunic.
yIvbeH tuQ puq vItuQmoHmo'. = The child is wearing a tunic because I dressed 
him.

lay'tel SIvten   </HTML>

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