[tlhIngan Hol] thoughts on Qeq face (orient towards)

De'vID de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com
Wed Aug 19 16:40:02 PDT 2020


On Tue, 18 Aug 2020 at 16:12, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 8/18/2020 9:57 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
>
> 'a wotvam DeltaHvIS 'oqranD, qatlh QIjlaw'ghachvam 'otHa'pu' ? qatlh
> maHvaD {Qeqchuq} QIjchu'pu'be' ?
>
> chaq not maSov..
>
> I suspect he was thinking: *Qeq* means *aim,* and I'm going to generalize
> that *orient something.* That means the subject of the verb has to be
> "aiming" the object, so the thing faced has to be the locative. But to talk
> about someone or something "facing" something else, someone needs to cause
> the object to be oriented toward the target? Who is the subject? Mostly,
> when you talk about someone facing something, no one is making someone else
> face something, the object makes itself face something. That's reflexive,
> and the two reflexive suffixes are *-'egh* and *-chuq.* So someone can
> face themselves at something, or plural someones can—OH LOOK, A SQUIRREL!
>
> In other words, I don't think he considered whether *-chuq* is actually
> useful. I think he only considered the syntax, that the object is also the
> subject.
>
I think he might've intended that {Qeq} is used with {-chuq} to indicate
that two people (or things) face each other, either without having thought
about how that doesn't really follow from the parts or forgetting to
explain that it's an idiom or fossilised expression or whatever. I know
that he says that {-Daq} marks the thing or person being faced, and that
still works for {-'egh}. When he says "with this meaning", I read it as
indicating "the face/orient meaning of {Qeq} rather than the aim [a weapon]
meaning", and facing (oneself) towards something and two (or more) people
or things facing each other are common occurrences. I think he might've
been confused by the gloss "aim (at)". "Aim at each other" obviously means
"face each other", right?

{SoHDaq jIQeq'egh} "I aim myself at you", "I face you"
{jIHDaq bIQeq'egh} "You aim yourself at me", "You face me"
?{maQeqchuq} "We aim at each other", "We face each other"

-- 
De'vID
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