[tlhIngan Hol] muvchuqmoH. seriously ?

Terrence Donnelly terrence.donnelly at sbcglobal.net
Thu Jul 28 07:40:00 PDT 2016


Why not just {muvmoH}, then? What does {-chuq} add to it? "Cause to unite" v. "cause to unite each other"? The latter almost sounds like they unite without Kahless as the impetus for their union.

ter'eS


      From: André Müller <esperantist at gmail.com>
 To: "tlhingan-hol at kli.org" <tlhingan-hol at kli.org> 
 Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2016 9:29 AM
 Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] muvchuqmoH. seriously ?
   
It's neither an exception nor something new. I don't think (m)any of us would be surprised about this sentence. While {-chuq} reduces the valency, making a transitive verb intransitive, {-moH}, being a causative suffix, increases the valency by adding another argument. Intransitive verbs become transitive, and transitive verbs actually remain transitive, but another oblique argument is added (see the famous example with Worf's sash).

Now, any verb with {-chuq} is by definition intransitive, so adding {-moH} naturally makes it transitive again, turning the meaning into something like "S makes O verb each other". I don't recall if I have ever used these two suffixes together, but their use seems quite natural to me and I would've formed the sentence the same way.

Schematically:
S verbs. (intransitive, e.g. {'IH})
S verbs O. (transitive, e.g. {legh})
S&S verb each other. (reciprocal, e.g. {leghchuq})
S makes O&O verb each other. (reciprocal+causative, e.g. {leghchuqmoH})

S&S and O&O I just use to show that they must in some way refer to plural entities.

I don't quite see what's new about it. But perhaps I just always assumed that it works this way and am thus not surprised about this sentence.

- André

2016-07-28 15:18 GMT+02:00 SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name>:

  On 7/28/2016 2:45 AM, mayqel qunenoS wrote:
  
 read this :

Qo'noS tuqmey muvchuqmoH qeylIS
kahless united the tribes of kronos

..good for him ; but for the rest of us, why the {muvchuqmoH} takes an object ?

according to tkd, when the {-chuq} suffix is used, the verb prefix
must indicate "no object". that is the word which bears the {-chuq}
can't take an object. the ones that are {-chuq"ed"}, must be the
recipients of each others actions. they can't {-chuq} each other, and
then all of them together {-chuq} someone else too.

now, perhaps this sentence stands because we have the {-moH}, on the
{muvchuq} ; but even so, I can't bring myself to *feeling* the
combined meaning of {-chuq} {-moH} with that of a subject too.
 
 
 Good catch! I think you may have just discovered a bit of supporting evidence for a new grammar exception. (For those who don't know, this sentence comes from paq'batlh.) Apparently, the rules governing -chuq—that it is only used with plural subjects and that it always uses a no-object prefix—only apply when the semantic agents of the action (those who perform the action the verb describes) are the subjects of the verb. When something else is the subject—in this case the -moH tells us that the subject causes the verb instead of performing it—those rules are ignored. -- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name 
_______________________________________________
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org




_______________________________________________
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org


  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20160728/f2756a99/attachment.htm>


More information about the tlhIngan-Hol mailing list