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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/16/2019 1:55 PM, Alan Anderson
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAFK8js09HNT8owJFvJ=FmRuEs+oyHbArV9Qn8YcGqUketxkKZw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 1:19 PM SuStel <<a
href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name" moz-do-not-send="true">sustel@trimboli.name</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail-m_2867629574833304790moz-cite-prefix">On
4/16/2019 12:59 PM, Will Martin wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">We don’t seem to have a problem with
the idea that {jI-} means the same entity is the subject
of causation AND the subject of being hot, even though
there is no explicit explanation of how this works</blockquote>
<p>You want to understand?</p>
<p>Never say the phrase "subject of the causation" again.</p>
<p>You say it every time, and it's what gets you off track
every time.</p>
<p>How it works is simple. The subject performs whatever the
entire verb is. If there is a <b>-moH</b> on the verb,
then the subject causes something to happen.</p>
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<div>I don't grasp the distinction you are making between the
ideas in "subject of the causation" and "subject [that] causes
something to happen". You seem to think it's perfectly clear,
but you've never been able to explain why the first phrase is
bad and the second one is good.</div>
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<p> Whether the subject performs the action described by the
bare verb or any of its other suffixes is a matter of
interpretation and context. Someone else might perform the
action that is caused by the subject.</p>
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<div>The someone else you mention would thus be the subject of
the action, as opposed to being the subject of the causation,
right?</div>
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<p>Here we go again. <i>Subject</i> is a term of syntax, applied
without any consideration to meaning. <i>Causer, agent, theme,</i>
and <i>experiencer</i> are terms of semantics.</p>
<p>In a sentence without <b>-moH,</b> the situation is very simple.
The subject is always the agent/theme/experiencer. Easy.</p>
<p>In a sentence with <b>-moH,</b> the situation requires analysis
and attention to context. The subject is always the causer, but
may or may not be the agent, theme, or experiencer. Any objects,
whether direct or indirect, may or may not be the agent, theme, or
experiencer.</p>
<p>To split a Klingon sentence with <b>-moH</b> up into "subject of
the causation" and "subject of the action" is to incorrectly apply
linguistic terminology to a distinction that may not even exist in
a given sentence.</p>
<p>In a simple <b>-moH</b> sentence like <b>puq vIQuchmoH,</b>
sure, you could imagine this as <b>Quch puq</b> and <b>vI<i>-cause.</i></b>
Subject of action, subject of cause. Hooray.<br>
</p>
<p>This breaks down when you get to sentences like <b>puqvaD
tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH</b> and <b>puq vIghojmoH, </b>not to
mention <b>Qo'noS tuqmey muvchuqmoH qeylIS</b><b>.</b> These
sentences defy such simple attempts to make Klingon syntax into a
formula. The "subject of the action" seems to change arbitrarily,
hence charghwI''s despair. And so I'm telling him to jettison his
misleading and only-useful-when-it's-easy terminology and see the
semantics behind what's really going on.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAFK8js09HNT8owJFvJ=FmRuEs+oyHbArV9Qn8YcGqUketxkKZw@mail.gmail.com">
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<p> There is no formula to determine who that is; you need
to figure it out from context and the hints given to you
by the verb and its suffixes...</p>
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<div>Your lengthy analysis sounds to me like a wordier version
of "...there is no explicit explanation of how this works."</div>
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<p>There ARE explanations, though Okrand has not necessarily laid
them all out. I've explained them a lot, to the extent that I can.
There is no simple formula, which is what he wants. He wants verb
A --> A verb B, and so A verb B --> A5 B verbmoH C, or
something like that, that he has worked out in his head. He wants
a purely syntactic formula to follow. Klingon doesn't work like
that.</p>
<p>But there ARE patterns. We know that when A causes B to act on C,
<b>B</b><b>vaD C VmoH A.</b> When A causes no one in particular to
act on C, <b>C VmoH A.</b> When A causes B to act on nothing in
particular, <b>B VmoH A.</b> These are simple enough to follow,
and he can repeat them, but charghwI' doesn't really understand
WHY they are the way they are. Continuing to say things like "the
subject of the causation" just demonstrates this lack of
understanding.</p>
<p>We also have indications that the rule of type 1 verb suffixes
requiring no-object prefixes only applies when the prefix isn't
agreeing with something other than the reflexive parties. And this
makes sense if we consider that the suffixes, fixed in place as
they are, are incapable of telling us which entities they belong
to in a sentence with <b>-moH.</b></p>
<p>"No explicit explanation of how this works" is true only in the
sense that Okrand hasn't announced how all this stuff works. But
as linguistic descriptivists — right? — we look at what he's
written and deduce the rules. We have quite a lot of data on this.
We can craft explanations. There are admittedly imperfect, and can
be refined or overruled with the discovery of, or new
understanding of, new data, but they are nevertheless
explanations.</p>
<p>When TKD came out, we all managed to figure out the rule that
when you take a sentence like <b>Quch puq,</b> and you add <b>-moH</b>
to say that I caused this to happen, you make <b>puq</b> the
object. <i>THERE IS NO EXPLANATION OF THIS ANYWHERE IN TKD. </i>We
simply deduced the rules.</p>
<p>So we can flail about helplessly with no syntactic formula for <b>-moH</b>
given to us by Okrand, or we can deduce the rules and why they are
what they are. Which is what we've been doing all along.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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