tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Oct 05 11:04:14 2009

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Re: The meaning of -moH

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Doq wrote:
> You started this thread by quoting Okrand in TKD: "Adding this suffix  
> to a verb indicates that the subject is causing a change of condition  
> or causing a new condition to come into existence."
> 
> You shifted the focus from talk of "cause" to talk of changing the  
> state of something. Now, you are back to talking about "cause",  
> dropping any reference to "change".

I was unaware of any particular focus on "change." That certainly was 
not my intention. "Change" of state is a part of the meaning of the 
suffix, but not the central feature of it.

> My interest is in an unaddressed aspect of what this "cause" means. I  
> think it is related to state, as you propose, but I think there's a  
> third thing that even Okrand didn't mention. You can cause a change of  
> condition, or cause a new condition to come into existence, or you can  
> cause a condition to be sustained longer than it would if you were not  
> acting as agent toward this end. As such, you are not an agent of  
> change of state, while you are still an agent of the support of the  
> state. You support stasis. In that case, you neither cause a change of  
> state, nor cause a new state to come into existence, and yet, you  
> still cause the state to be what it is.

I see what you mean, and I can see the case for calling it an 
unmentioned third aspect of -moH. I don't have any problem with 
distinguishing between causing a state to change and causing a state to 
remain the same. I don't see that it would have any great grammatical 
impact to do so.

Alternatively, if one were to say {QuchmoHtaH} "cause to remain happy," 
"cause to be continuously happy," and the context made it clear that 
"remain" was the correct translation, then one might say that one is 
causing the action {QuchtaH} "remain happy," which is different than the 
action {Quch} "be happy." The object of the action may have already been 
happy, but you're causing him to "remain happy," which wasn't his state 
before.

One could also rightly complain that we're just arguing semantics here. 
Either way, {QuchmoHtaH} means "keep (someone) happy" or "make (someone) 
continuously happy."

jIHvaD meqlIj DayajmoHpu'.

meqlIj choyajmoHpu'. (Prefix Trick)

-- 
SuStel
tlhIngan Hol MUSH
http://trimboli.name/mush

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