[tlhIngan Hol] tuQ and tuQmoH difference

[Will Martin]

It’s easier for me to learn something I don’t know than it is to understand something that I have misunderstood.

I’m not going to argue with you or dismiss you.

I’m going to listen, and assume that this topic is something that you definitely understand better than I do. I will try to erase my errors and replace them with a higher understanding of {-moH}. Other comments in line, less to argue than to illustrate how my understanding is bending in order to align better with The Way Things Apparently Are.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.




> On Feb 19, 2019, at 3:36 PM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 2/19/2019 2:06 PM, Will Martin wrote:
>> ...
>> Basically, the Subject or Agent does the action of the verb. Languages pretty universally agree on that, and pretty much every verb works with most nouns acting as Subject, if that noun is actually capable of doing the action of the verb, or acquiring the state suggested by the verb. That much has no controversy that I’ve seen.
> No. You're still mixing up syntax and semantics. The subject is the thing that goes at the end. It is a syntactic element that performs whatever the verb is, regardless of what is actually being described by the sentence. Whether the subject is doing something or experiencing something or causing something is completely irrelevant, as is what is happening; all that is relevant is that the subject performs the verb in that abstract space we call syntax.
> 
> Likewise for the object. It makes absolutely no difference what the sentence is actually about; all that matters is that the object is having the verb done to it. It doesn't matter what the verb means; the object simply has that abstract verb done to it.
> 
That sounds simple, and it fits the way I always thought it worked, until I hit a wall when a verb with {-moH} gets two objects, except that one of them needs {-vaD}, if both objects are stated, but doesn’t need it if only one object is stated.

I can’t explain that to myself, if the object is simply the thing having the verb done to it. Clearly, there’s more to it than that.

I’ve heard you explain before that {ghojmoH} becomes this new verb that means something like “cause-learning”, such that you can cause-learning a student or cause-learning the topic you teach to the student.

I think my problem is that in “I give Sam an apple,” there’s a direct object and an indirect object, and there are grammatical clues as to which is which based on word order. So, Klingon doesn’t like to use the terms “direct” or “indirect”, and so both kinds of objects are “objects”.

I could get that. Klingon doesn’t care about the difference between a direct object “I give an apple” and an indirect object, “I give to Sam”, which I can combine in English as “I give Sam an apple.” The verb “give” has two objects. One is direct. One is indirect. Klingon doesn’t care about the difference. I could get that.

But in Klingon, this works in a way backwards from English, because instead of being able to say, “I give an apple to Sam,” optionally as “I give Sam an apple,” and could say the parts as, “I give an apple,” and “I give to Sam,” it’s like the only legal form of the combination sentence is “I give an apple to Sam,” and the parts would be expressed as “I give an apple,” and “I give Sam.”

I’m not allowed to say, “I give to Sam,” but if both objects are stated, I have to say, “I give an apple to Sam.” It’s not okay to say, “I give Sam an apple”.

And this only happens to verbs that use {-moH}. That’s the weirdness. I’m trying to let go of any interest in things not simply being weird.
> An agent, though, is an entity that actually deliberately performs an action. You have to know what the verb means in order to identify whether there is an agent and where that agent belongs in the sentence.
> 
> chab vISop I eat pie. I deliberately eat pie; I am the agent and the subject.
> loDHom vISopmoH I cause the boy to eat (something unspecified). I am not the agent even though I am the subject. My role is causer.
> chab vISopmoH I cause (someone unspecified) to eat pie. I am not the agent even though I am the subject. My role is causer.
> loDHomvaD chab vISopmoH I cause the boy to eat pie. I am not the agent even though I am the subject. My role is causer.
> 
> To identify me as the agent, you need to determine whether I am eating. The rest of the sentence doesn't matter and can do whatever it wants.
> 
Perfectly sensible. {Sop} without {-moH} and the same noun is both the agent and the causer. {SopmoH} and the subject is the causer, while the agent becomes one of two possible objects of the verb. If both objects exist, then the agent gets {-vaD} added, but if the agent is the only stated object, it does not get {-vaD}.
> A patient is an entity that undergoes an action and thereby changes its state.
> 
> chab vISop I eat pie. The pie is the patient because it undergoes an action (being eaten) and changes its state (it is gone).
> loDHom vISopmoH I cause the boy to eat (something unspecified). The boy is not the patient because the boy is not having his state changed; he is the agent because he is performing the action (eating). The pie is still the patient because it is being eaten. I am the causer.
> chab vISopmoH I cause (someone unspecified) to eat pie. The pie is the patient because it is being eaten. It does not matter whether we know who is eating it or not. I am the causer.
> loDHomvaD chab vISopmoH I cause the boy to eat pie. As always, the pie is the patient because it is being eaten. Again, the boy is the agent because he is doing the eating. I am still the causer.
> 
So, both the agent and the patient are both potential objects of {SopmoH}, so long as only one of them is explicitly stated, while only the patient can be the object of {Sop}, though if both the patient and the agent are explicit, then the agent gets {-vaD} and the patient is grammatically the one object, since {-vaD} essentials marks the agent as something other than object.

Technically, one could consider it an “indirect object”, but Klingon doesn’t have indirect objects or direct objects. It just has “objects”. Though in any other setting, a noun with {-vaD} on it is not an object because if it’s the only object there, the prefix does not agree with it being interpreted as an object.

So, it’s not an object.

Except when it is one of two objects…

… all of which makes it more complicated than the original statement that "the object is having the verb done to it.”

It sounds like the patient is having the verb done to it.

But you are dancing on both sides of the definition of what the verb is. Is the verb eating, or is it causing eating?

I know. It’s both, because both the agent and the patient can be the object, so long as both are not present. If both are present, then only the patient is the object. The agent is then the beneficiary.
> Notice how it's completely irrelevant to what's actually happening whether a word appears as subject, direct object, or indirect object? What's important is what it means, not how the sentence is constructed.
> 
> To summarize: Subject does not equal agent. Object does not equal patient. Subject and object refer to abstract syntax without regard to what the sentence actually means. Agent, patient, and other semantic terms refer to the meaning of the sentence without regard to where they actually appear in the sentence.

My problem is really only partially with this use of {-moH}.

It has more to do with verbs that normally do not take objects because they have no patient, like {tuj}. The agent becomes the object with {tujmoH}.

My real problem is, why not say {chabwIjvaD jItujmoH.}?

Everybody agrees that this is wrong. I mean, really, really wrong. No basis whatsoever in this being considered grammatical. Nobody wants this to be a good Klingon sentence.

See my problem here?

The implication is that this is the correct version of {chabwIj vItujmoH}, because if there were a patient here, {chab} would need {-vaD}.

That’s the ghost that whispers to me when I see how Okrand has explained how {-moH} works. It’s an inconsistency in the grammar.

I will accept that it is a consistent inconsistency in the grammar. I just don’t understand why this doesn’t bother anybody but me. Nobody else complains about it, so I’m obviously wrong. I know that.

>> Meanwhile, there are other nouns that give information about the action or state of the verb. A type 5 noun suffix defines specific relationships between the verb and that noun. Locative, beneficiary, etc.
>> 
>> The absence of any Type 5 suffix on a noun before the verb suggests that this noun is the “Object” of the verb. So, what does this mean, exactly? It seems straightforward enough, but if you look at it closer, it gets more complicated.
>> 
>> In English, you can take an example like, “The Moon orbits the Earth.” Simple enough. "The Earth" is the direct object of “orbit”.
>> 
>> The same meaning can be conveyed by saying, “The Moon goes around the Earth.” Here, the “Earth” is not the direct object of “goes”. The Moon doesn’t go the Earth. It goes around the Earth. The word “around” is a preposition.
>> 
>> So, in “The Moon orbits the Earth”, the direct object of “orbit” has a prepositional relationship with its subject.
>> 
>> This is a glimpse at something that is happening to the thought before it goes through a brain and comes out language.
>> 
>> Basically, each verb ties the subject and object together with a relationship that is the most common type of relationship implied by that verb. Different verbs imply different relationships between subject and object, but the most common relationship between nouns linked by the verb is the relationship defined by the appropriate direct object of the verb.
> This is not inherent in the syntax of the sentence. The moon orbits the earth. Moon is a "force" (it performs the action mindlessly); earth is a theme (undergoes the action but does not thereby change its state). If you change the syntax to The moon goes around the earth, you haven't changed the semantic roles of those words one whit.
> 
This is new vocabulary for me. Thanks. Yes, this makes perfect sense.

>> So, the direct object of “orbit” has a prepositional relationship between the subject and object.
> No it doesn't. A preposition doesn't have an inherent meaning; it's the words that make up the preposition that are meaningful. I can, for instance, say The space agency will orbit the satellite around the Earth fifty times. Check a dictionary; this meaning of orbit is listed. Now the direct object of orbit isn't the thing that something else goes around; it's the thing that's going around something else. Now the direct object of orbit isn't a theme, it's a patient. 
> 
> 

Cool example. Thanks.

I can see how that probably got twisted from an earlier, more restricted meaning to this newer one. English does that a lot. Very adaptable.

>> The direct object of “hit” has an event-centric, physical interaction between the subject and object.
> But the direct object of hit might be a patient (The captain hit the enemy) or it might be a theme (The smell hit my nostrils; the ship hit the ground). It's not quite so simple as that.
> 
> And what about The ball was hit? We name the thing that was hit, but it isn't the object of hit.
> 
> 
Passive voice. Special. I’d expect the ball to be patient of hit with an indefinite agent, bu then, are we talking about the sphere, or the score-related number?

I had a migraine last Friday, and my brain still feels bruised, floating in a tank with nasty, hard walls around the edge. I’m not focusing very well.

>> The direct object of “build” has a historical relationship between the entity that brought the direct object into being, and the resultant thing that was made. Building is the process. The direct object is the result of that process. The object and the process do not coexist in time. The action of building is always in the past of the object that was built. The object is not complete until the action of building it is complete.
> Exercise builds character. Are you suggesting an athlete has no character until he/she finishes exercising?
> 
> 

Another good example, though my read of this is more like shorthand for “Exercise builds on the character you have, increasing and improving it.” No matter. Your point taken.

>> But that’s a “direct object”. What about the larger class of “objects”? Why is Okrand so squeamish about adding the word “direct” in front of “object”?
> I don't think he was being squeamish; I think he didn't consider it particularly relevant. He wasn't writing an academic paper; he was writing a coffee-table Star Trek merchandising opportunity. The fact that you want to analyze those words decades later doesn't make him squeamish.
> 
> 
I learned about direct objects in high school. I didn’t think it was particularly academic. My bad. I had a very good English teacher. I didn’t know she was giving us advanced stuff.

>> Well, it doesn’t seem to make much difference until you add {-moH} to a verb. Then the reason for not wanting to put the descriptor “direct” in front of “object” really gets in your face and refuses to be ignored.
> That's because by putting on -moH you're telling the sentence, "Hey, I didn't actually do this thing; I just made someone else do it." You're asking -moH to do this, so it should come as absolutely no surprise when it does do it.
> 
> 
I was never confused about {-moH} changing the role of Subject to “causer”, pointing to a different noun than the agent. I got that right away.

My confusion was that until Okrand’s years-late explanation, he had been putting the agent in the object position in TKD and canon. A few examples of patient also appeared here and there, and seemed like some sort of grammatical shortcut, like the prefix trick, but then when he revealed how it works when there are two objects, the agent gets {-vaD} for the first time. That had never happened before.

And instead of just getting {-vaD} all the time, it only gets it when both the patient and agent are there.

It seems logical that if both objects were there, then the patient would get {-‘e’}, since we had a lot more examples of agent as object than patient as object up to this point, so it really felt like the patient should be the object and this other thing should be marked with a Type 5 of some sort.

But logic doesn’t matter. Language is language. It involves some logic, but it’s not bound to it. I’m more bound to it than the language is, which is the source of the dissonance.

But over time, one erodes. I will accept how this works.

>> tlhIngan Hol vIghoj. I learn the language of a Klingon.
>> 
>> puqwI’ vIghojmoH. I teach my child. I cause my child to learn. I’m not the one learning. I’m the one causing learning to happen. My child is the one learning.
>> 
>> tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH. I teach the language of a Klingon.
>> 
>> Okay, things just got weird. I am still causing learning to happen. The language of a Klingon is not learning. Okay, so unlike every other verb suffix, {-moH} is not merely modifying the verb in a way that can be explained by any standard, boilerplate text. It is opening up new opportunities for nouns to be objects of the verb. You don’t need no stinkin’ Type 5 suffix here. You can just put two completely different kinds of nouns in the role of the “object” of the verb. The object can be the direct object of causation, or the direct object of the action being caused.
> There is no "direct object of causation" or "direct object of the action." These are nonsense terms. There is a direct object, which is whatever the verb is acting upon without regard to the meaning of the sentence. puq vIghojmoH I, the subject, am acting upon the child, the object. Syntactically — and remember, subject and object are syntactic terms — I don't care what the verb means. I am acting upon the child. Hol vIghojmoH I, the subject, am acting upon the language, the object. Again, I don't care what the verb actually means; all that matters is that I am acting upon the language.
> 
I was just trying to use the language that TKD uses instead of switching to the academic terms “agent” and “patient”, which Okrand doesn’t mention and I didn’t learn in high school. My choice of language didn’t work for you. It probably didn’t work for anyone.

That’s okay.

Why should a person who is wrong about a topic successfully express his mistake clearly?

It was a failed exercise in explaining stuff.
> Now, the idea that a single verb can have multiple semantic roles for its arguments is nothing new. I teach the child. I teach Klingon. English speakers do that without blinking. In the first sentence, the child is the patient. In the second sentence, Klingon is the theme. Different semantic roles for the same verb.
> 
> What's the big deal?
> 
The big deal is the difference between the English word “teach” and the Klingon word {ghojmoH}. Yes, the gloss is the same.

Gotta run.

Thank you for the time you put into this. It does help me. You have won this argument, and you did it well. I honestly commend you and appreciate your effort and your skill.
> Get away from the idea that "object" conveys some kind of meaning for the world being described by the sentence. All it does is say that the subject is acting upon the object by the action of the verb. That's all. No meaning associated with it.
> 
> 
> 
>> The object of {ghojmoH} can either be the one who learns, or the topic or skill being learned. If only one of these is stated, these two potential objects are on equal footing and neither needs a Type 5 suffix to explain its relationship to the subject. Basically the relationship between the subject and object is grammatically ambiguous in a way that does not exist elsewhere in the language. This happens to every verb, whenever {-moH} is attached to it, and it doesn’t happen to any verbs without {-moH}, that we know of, anyway.
> Because no verbs without -moH ask us to put both the patient and the theme (or any other combinations of roles) in the object. You did that yourself when you added the -moH. You said please, Mr. Verb, let me make myself, the subject, one step removed from the action by not doing it, but by causing someone else to do it.
> 
> 
> 
>> [{jatlh} comes close, since its object apparently can be either the utterance or the person addressed. Again, a beautiful division between two similar verbs {jatlh} and {ja’} divided by the type of appropriate object, later watered down so that either verb can have either object type.]
> It's entirely unclear to me that verbs of speech can actually take the person addressed as a direct object. Okrand allows the prefix trick on verbs like this (qajatlh I speak to you), and we see qaja' a lot which may or may not be the prefix trick, but I believe there are exactly zero examples of an actual, explicit addressee as the direct object of such a verb. Without stronger evidence I would not make this claim.
> 
> 
> 
>> Furthermore, if both of these nouns appear, so that I say, “I teach Klingon to my child,” then one of the two nouns acquires the requirement of a Type 5 suffix. Oddly enough, it’s not the topic of the learning. It’s the little kid doing the learning. {puqwI’vaD tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH.}
> That's not odd. When no one is causing the verb (with -moH), the verb usually has an object with an expected meaning. Soj vISop, there is no question that Soj is a correct object here, but puq vISop cannot be correct unless I'm a cannibal (in which case the puq is Soj anyway). So all we have to do is recognize that the verb's usual object role, whatever it is without -moH, takes precedence over whatever agent or experiencer may have moved to become an object. Basically, if it was an object before the -moH, it stays in place if another object shows up.
> 
> 
> 
>> Personally, I would have strongly preferred {tlhIngan Hol’e’ puqwI’ vIghojmoH.} That would have been more obviously understandable to new people learning the language, and it would not have required a reevaluation of masses of earlier canon, especially for stative verbs with {-moH}.
> It's only a reevaluation if you learned during that period. I see students nowadays who have absolutely no problem following this.
> 
> 
> 
>> I understand how it works. I just don’t like it.
> I don't think you do understand it. You can construct sentences the right way, but you don't understand the rationale.
> 
> You don't have to like it. It is what it is. What purpose does it serve to write this much text about it?
> 
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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