tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 29 16:28:33 2010
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Re: choH vs. choHmoH
While using the English translation isn't ideal, there's often little
difference between "change" and "cause to change" - change implies
causation. For example: "Marc changed his hair color." Either Marc caused
the change in hair color by doing it himself (perhaps with a kit; they're
easy enough to use) or caused someone else to cause the change in hair
color. Even where the process involves an intermediary there is still an
indirect causation, which can be explained by context: "Marc changed his
hair color at the hairdresser's." and "The hairdresser changed Marc's hair
color." both explain that Marc wasn't as direct a causer of the change
despite the different forms of expression. Even "The hairdresser changed
Marc's hair color with a bright green dye." gets the actual color change
chemicals involved in the statement while still communicating that all three
participants (Marc, hairdresser and dye) had some degree of causation in the
process.
The cases where a causative would then be useful would be those without
context ("Marc changed-CAUS his hair color." to imply that he did it
himself) or for some sort of emphasis ("The hairdresser changed-CAUS Marc's
hair color with a bright green dye." to emphasize the hairdresser's role as
the direct agent over the dye.). Since "change" is a cross-linguistic
concept it's not unreasonable to think of other languages (including
Klingon) not needing to make the distinction except in specific situations.
Given that a command is demanding some kind of action it makes sense that a
causative suffix can be used; even if it's not necessary, it's emphatic:
"Alter the attack course (and see to it that you're the one that makes it
happen)!"
(While I realize that this explanation isn't as based on data as some might
like, the use of causative in some places and not in others makes
instinctive sense to me, and this is my attempt to explain it as logical and
reasonable. :P)
On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 5:35 PM, André Müller <[email protected]> wrote:
> Okay. I guess I have to look at the data again, some day. Or that
> discussion
> from back then.
> Greetings,
> - André
>
> 2010/1/29 David Trimboli <[email protected]>
>
> > On 1/29/2010 4:24 PM, André Müller wrote:
> > > 2010/1/29 David Trimboli<[email protected]>
> > >>
> > >> If the interpretation were correct, it would look like this:
> > >>
> > >> He yIchoH
> > >> Change the course!
> > >>
> > >> He yIchoHmoH
> > >> Be the cause of you changing the course!
> > >>
> > >>
> > > Hmm, shouldn't that sentence translate rather as "Let the course change
> > > it/sth.!"? The verb's not reflexive, so the subject/causer cannot be
> the
> > > object here. If {choH} means change (the transitive verb), then
> "choHmoH"
> > > would mean "cause sth. to change sth.", thus, in {He yIchoHmoH} you
> order
> > > the course itself to change something else.
> >
> > That was exactly the point of my investigation earlier. Whenever {-moH}
> > is used with (apparently) transitive verbs, it doesn't follow the
> > pattern [Verb A] --> [A VerbmoH B] like verbs of quality. Instead it
> > looks like [B Verb A] ("A verbs B") --> [B VerbmoH A] ("A verbs B and
> > was the direct cause of that action").
> >
> > --
> > SuStel
> > http://www.trimboli.name/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>