[tlhIngan Hol] "Prefix trick" with third-person verb prefixes

[l.cp at web.de]

Thank you again for your clarifications, SuStel. A misleading interpretation of what the "prefix trick" is was preventing me of seeing things from the correct perspective.

Just some last few questions:

> When there is a direct object as the verb's object, or no possible direct object, the prefix trick lets you agree with an unstated indirect object instead of the explicit object.

When you say "no possible direct object", do you mean direct quotations...

>> Or are you using the concept "prefix trick" just for situations in which we have an explicit direct object and a prefix pointing to an elided indirect object,

> ...or no direct object, as in qajatlh...

... or do you mean, like in *qajatlh*, that *you* cannot be the direct object, because a person cannot *be spoken*, and thus it must be the indirect object?

The reason why *qajatlh* is an instance of the "prefix trick" and not an instance of a verb taking an object with the semantic role of the indirect object, is just that we were told that the object of *jatlh* is a language, an act of speech or the thing that is being said, but not an audience, whereas we know that *ja'* can also take an audience as object, right?

However, in the thread I was referring to you can also find the sentence *tlhIngan vIjatlh* ("I speak to the Klingon"). Would that be an instance of the "prefix trick"?

Are there other verbs apart from *ja'* (and maybe *jang*) that can take an object with the semantic role of the indirect object?