[tlhIngan Hol] difference in {-meH}ing intransitive verbs

Will Martin willmartin2 at mac.com
Thu Oct 3 19:38:10 PDT 2019


Like liquid nitrogen is a cooling liquid?

A to-be-cold liquid.

If it’s not liquid, it’s not cold. 
Sent from my iPhone. 
charghwI’

> On Oct 3, 2019, at 8:21 PM, nIqolay Q <niqolay0 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 4:19 PM Will Martin <willmartin2 at mac.com> wrote:
>> The problem is that you are tossing us a sentence fragment and asking us what it means without any context.
>> 
>> I was presuming you meant something like {bIrmeH betgham jan vISuq.}
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> I think mayqel is talking about something like QalmeH DoQmIv'a' "swimming pool, large basin for the purpose of swimming", where the purpose clause modifies a noun, and the noun isn't the subject of the verb with -meH. I can see what he's getting at. In the case of bIrmeH betgham, it's the same basic construction as QalmeH DoQmIv'a' or SuStel's example of QongmeH pa', with an intransitive verb in a purpose clause modifying a noun that is not the subject of the purpose clause. The liquid is apparently for the purpose of something being cold, but the liquid itself isn't necessarily what's cold. 
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> I'm not sure why you would prefer bIrmeH betgham over something like bIrmoHbogh betgham. Perhaps the former phrasing focuses on the desired end state, while the latter focuses on the change of state. Or perhaps the liquid has the purpose of keeping something cold, but in an indirect way that wouldn't necessarily justify using -moH. Maybe it's a poetic flair to evoke a general coldness. Maybe it's a poetic flair to make the sentence fit the meter. It's an unusual construction, and I'm not sure what contexts it would work best in, but I can't really say it's grammatically wrong, per se. Purpose clauses with nouns are not fully understood.
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