tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 06 19:03:54 2009
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Re: The meaning of -moH
QIntetlhvam vItIvchu'taH. qechmey Dun vIqIH Suja'chuqtaHvIS.
naDev law' valqu'wI'pu'. Holmey law' Sovlu'.
jIval je, 'ach Holmey law' vISovbe'. Hol qechmey vIyajlaH, 'ach Holmey
vIHaDmeH poH yap vIHutlh. Huch vIbajnIS, vaj De'wI'mey vIQorgh 'ej
lo'wI'pu' vIQaH.
juHDaq be'nal vIQuchnISmoH. munuQbe' Qu'vam. vIQuchmoHta'DI',
muQuchmoHtaH.
'ach poHwIj lunatlh Qu'meyvam.
chaq maH nem, rInDI' Huch vIbajmeH Qu', Holmey vIHaDchoHlaH.
QaptaHchugh yabwIj, jIghoj 'ej jItIv 'e' vIpIH.
Doq
On Oct 6, 2009, at 7:21 PM, André Müller wrote:
> 2009/10/7 David Trimboli <[email protected]>
>>
>>> The problem with applying the causative to transitive verbs is
>>> that we
>>> end up with three arguments with only two core slots to put them in,
>>> so we have to resort to a non-core marking, {-vaD}, for one of them.
>>
>> We're not "resorting" to anything. The {-vaD} noun of, say, {ghojmoH}
>> "cause to learn" is the legitimate beneficiary or recipient of the
>> causing to learn. It never would have been a core argument.
>>
>
> Maybe not in Klingon, but in other languages, the causee sure can be
> marked
> as the primary object, in the same way as there are languages where in
> ditransitive sentences the recipient is marked as the primary object
> and the
> theme as secondary, while it is the other way round in the (Indo-
> European)
> languages most common to us. Chamorro, for instance, does it that way.
> Causative constructions with transitive verbs often work similar to
> ditransitive constructions (for the simple reason that
> causativization is a
> valency-raising construction, so monotransitive verbs become
> ditransitive by
> definition).
> There's a similar construction in English: "I gave you the book.",
> where the
> recipient is arguably the primary object and the book is the
> secondary one
> (although the cases are alike here, see the example "I gave him him.")
>
> So there are always at least these three ways to encode the causee
> and the
> final object (not sure which term is used actually) in the languages
> of the
> world:
>
> FRENCH:
> Je le lui ferai lire.
> I.NOM it.ACC her.DAT make.FUT read.INF
> = "I will make her read it."
>
> Here, the argument hierarchy is: causer (NOM) > final object (ACC) >
> causee
> (DAT)
> That ACC marks the higher-ranked object can be seen in simple
> sentences like
> "Je le lit." (I read it.).
>
> GERMAN:
> Ich lasse ihn ihn fragen.
> I.NOM let.PRS him.ACC him.ACC ask.INF
> = "I let him ask him."
>
> Here, causee and final object are marked both with the dative, which
> is the
> usual case for primary objects. English looks similar but has no
> obvious
> dative case, which can serve to perhaps distinguish the two objects.
>
> ... I'm sorry, I hoped to find a nice example for a language that
> has the
> causee argument ranked higher than the "final object", but I can't
> find any.
> It's late here now and I want to go to bed. Maybe I can find an
> example, as
> I'm quite sure there are some languages that behave that way.
>
> Greetings,
> André
>
>