[tlhIngan Hol] muvchuqmoH. seriously ?

SuStel sustel at trimboli.name
Thu Jul 28 08:48:22 PDT 2016


On 7/28/2016 11:24 AM, Rhona Fenwick wrote:
>
> jIjatlhpu' jIH:
>
> > if the bare verb was univalent to begin with (i.e. couldn't normally 
> take
>
> > an object, like {Qong}, {QaQ}), then the derivative with {-'eghmoH}
>
> > probably cannot take an object either. How would one shoehorn an
>
> > explicit object into, say, {bel'eghmoH} "please oneself"?
>
>
> mujangpu' SuStel, jatlh:
>
> > It's not a question of valency, it's a question of syntactic roles. 
> What is
>
> > having something done to it? That's your object.
>
>
> I think we're saying the same thing in two different ways. The two 
> agreement slots of a verb (and thus its valency) correspond to the 
> syntactic roles of subject and object in any case. All I'm getting at 
> is that the way {-'egh} and {-moH} together affect the structure of 
> verb agreement (and therefore syntactic roles) should imply that if 
> you can't add an object to a bare verb {X}, you probably can't add one 
> to the verb {X-'eghmoH} either. Do you disagree?
>

I believe I disagree. If I wanted to say /I cause the Klingon to please 
himself,/ that could be *tlhIngan vIbel'eghmoH jIH.* I am doing 
something. Something is being done to the Klingon. Subject and object. 
The *-'egh* tells me that the performer of *bel* (and not the subject, 
as TKD says) pleases himself; the *-moH* tells me that the subject of 
the sentence causes the action to happen.


These suffixes cause only semantic changes. Whatever meaning the 
suffixes add to the verb, it still takes one subject that is the 
performer of the verb and one object that is the performee of the verb. 
If you want to go through a rigamarole of valences and transitivity and 
so on, have fun. I feel confident Okrand wasn't thinking about those 
things; he was thinking of syntax.


You specifically challenged whether the sentences showed anything 
exceptional or new, and that's what I responded to. It's exceptional in 
that it explicitly violates two rules about *-chuq, *whatever the 
justification. It's new in that no one ever said anything about it before.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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