[tlhIngan Hol] wishlist for TKD 3ed

[Will Martin]

“I cause him to give them the book” is thorny, since we don’t seem to have enough Type 5 suffixes to explain four nouns (I, him, them, book) wrapped around the word {nob} to have this meaning.

It’s easy enough to say, “I cause the book to be given to them,” as {chaHvaD paq vInobmoH}, using SuStel styled translation “I cause-giving the book to them,” leaving the identity of the one forced to give the book out of it. The full meaning would be easy enough in two sentences: {chaHvaD paq nob (ghaH); vInobmoH.}

I guess it could also be {chaHvaD paq nob ghaH, vInobmoHmo’.} There. One sentence. Yes, the verb is restated, but I don’t know a better way to pack that fourth noun into the sentence with one verb. Subject, indirect object (a.k.a. beneficiary), object… ummm. If we try to put two direct objects on it, then it gets confusing which is giving and which is being given, which is the core of the problem with {-moH} on already-transitive verbs (even though Okrand explicitly evades the use of the word “transitive”, since apparently Klingon grammarians don’t deal with the concept as a thing).

I’ll be happy to embrace any more elegant approach to the problem.

I mean, in a wild fantasy, this might work, but it would have to be a Klingon convention not explained in TKD or any canon source:

{chaHvaD paq’e’ ghaH vInobmoH}

I mean, heck, {-‘e’} has been used to fix several problems in Klingon expression of meaning, like marking Head Nouns of Relative Clauses, right? Maltz would have to reveal to us whether the {-‘e’} would be applied to the book or the person forced to give the book. Either one makes sense, but we’d have to have one standard way to do it, or it would be pointless. I certainly am not qualified to declare which one was right. The actual object of the verb (as opposed to the object of causation) makes sense to me as the better recipient of being marked by {-‘e’}, but who am I but a pale shadow of a former Beginners’ Grammarian?

This won’t work unless Okrand says so… or Maltz. Right. Maltz. Maltz has to say so.

So, there.

pItlh

charghwI’ ‘utlh
(ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)




> On May 17, 2023, at 2:54 AM, De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 14, 2023 at 8:39 PM Michael Kúnin via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org <mailto:tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org>> wrote:
>> What about resolving the issue of causative (i.e, {-moH}) verbs when the original verb is transitive?
> 
> What specifically is the issue? Is it just how to express the direct and indirect objects? 
> 
>> An example with one complement: {ghoj}; what is the canon Klingon for "I teach him mathematics"?
> 
> We already know that this is {ghaHvaD mI'QeD vIghojmoH}. 
>  
>> An example with two complements: {nob}; what is the the canon Klingon for "I make him give the book to them"?
> 
> 
> I'll ask for clarification about this.
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
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