tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 15 15:17:52 2011
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RE: On the interaction between different verb suffixes
- From: Felix Malmenbeck <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: On the interaction between different verb suffixes
- Date: Sun, 15 May 2011 22:15:16 +0000
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- Thread-topic: On the interaction between different verb suffixes
Come to think of it, since it's stated in TKD that type-2 verb suffixes "express how much choice the ->subject<- has about the action described or how predisposed the ->subject<- is to doing it" [->emphasis<- mine], it seems that in cases where you combine a type-2 verb suffix with -moH, you are indeed expressing a volition/disposition towards the causation of a state, rather than the state itself.
As such, I actually think that HeghqangmoHlu'pu' = "it made him/her willing to die" [TKD p.45] is best thought of as a mistake on Okrand's part, and that a more correct translation is, as SuStel suggests, "one was willing to make it die".
Lucifuge Rofocale:
> If you want to emphasise willingness and ability separately -
> "I am able to serve the Empire, and I am willing to serve the
> Empire" - repeat the sentence construct, separating out the
>suffixes, with the conjunction 'ej between them:-
Aye, the reason I bring this up is actually because I recently told somebody «tlhIngan Hol Daghoj DaneHchugh qaQaHlaH 'ej qaQaHqang» {If you want to learn Klingon, I'm willing and able to help you.}, and wondered if perhaps I could shorten this sentence by changing qaQaHlaH 'ej qaQaHqang into qaQaHqanglaH.
@SuStel:
I think I get what you're saying, and I think I might sort of agree with you; with the exception of -be' and -qu', verb suffixes refer to the whole action, rather than to one another. However, -moH always appears to the syntax of the stem it's attached to: While chen is a word which takes something which forms as a subject, chenmoH takes it as an object. [...and then, of course, there are the notorious qawmoH and tuQmoH]
However, note that I say "the action as a whole", rather than "the verb" (by which I take it you mean the bare stem).
To clarify what I think the conflict here is:
We begin with the word bIjorvIpchoH {you-explode-afraid-change}.
Depending on if we regard the suffixes as acting on the bare stem or on the action as a whole, we can read this either as "You begin to explode, and you're afraid of exploding.", or as "There's something explody about you, and fear (yours) and a change in state are involved."
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(which could mean that you're afraid of beginning to explode, that you're beginning to be afraid of exploding or that you're afraid of exploding and that you're beginning to explode, or perhaps you're currently exploding in a certain way with which you're comfortable and you don't want the EU to come in and say you have to explode differently, or...).
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Now, along comes the -moH suffix: bIjorvIpchoHmoH
This is where we seem to come to blows with our the idea that all verb suffixes act independently on the verb stem; -vIp now refers not to the subject's fear of exploding, but to its fear of causing explosions (since -vIp refer's to the subject's volition/disposition, and the subject is a causer of explosions, not an exploder).
In other words, it seems that the introduction of -moH has changed the role of -vIp.
...so I suppose you're right that I think of -moH as a sort of meta-verb, and what I'm asking is what other verb suffixes can act in this way; if -moH can change the meaning of -vIp, who's to say -laH can't change the meaning of -qang?