This flexibility of objects is why you can simultaneously have qaja'pu' I told you and lut vIja'pu' I told the story. In the first case there's no direct object to get in the way of the indirect object being the syntactic object of the verb. In the second the verb has an explicit direct object. If you wanted to say whom you told the story to, you would say puqvaD lut vIja'. This isn't even a -moH issue. Both direct and indirect objects can go in the object position, but if you have both the direct object wins and the indirect object goes to -vaD.
Interesting analysis. I actually like this as an explanation for the prefix trick as well.
Exactly! The two aren't quite the same thing, since the prefix
trick only works with first- and second-person indirect objects,
and only works when the indirect object isn't actually stated. In
SoQ qajatlh I give a speech to you, the
prefix is made to agree with an unstated indirect object of SoH,
but as soon as you state the indirect object, the prefix has
to agree with the stated direct object: SoHvaD SoQ vIjatlh.
You have two objects as well, but since the indirect object is indicated by the prefix, neither needs to take -vaD, although the unstated (because it’s encoded in the prefix) object is the one that normally would. It’s similar to your example of qaja'pu' which has an “indirect” object only, except with an explicit “direct” object as well.
The thing about all the ja' examples in canon is that not
one of them is conclusive. We have lots of examples like qaja'pu',
but never one that is SoH qaja'pu'. Once we got ja'
in paq'batlh, I think the example was lut vIja' or
something like that, it was clear to me that sentences like qaja'pu'
are either the prefix trick in action or that it doesn't
actually matter all that much whether the object is direct or
indirect. Then we saw ghojmoH flip-flop the same
way.
For transitive verbs with -moH I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly what’s happening there (e.g. puqvaD nIQ vISopmoH) but I’m happy to handwave it away with “objects are flexible” magic dust for now.
puqvaD nIQ vISopmoH I make the child eat breakfast.
The action of the sentence revolves around Sop eat. With this verb, someone is eating and something is being eaten. If the something that is being eaten is mentioned, it must be the object of the verb, no matter what suffixes the verb has on it. It is being acted upon directly, so it is the object. Here, nIQ breakfast is that object, a direct object.
Now, since I am the subject and I am causing something to happen, I am not the one eating. I am causing this situation to happen, and my target for all this is the puq child. Therefore, the child is the indirect object.
Or to put it another way: I cause eating to occur. Breakfast is eaten. The child is the recipient of what I'm doing, by being made to eat.
Or to put it yet another way: nIQ vISopmoH I cause
breakfast to be eaten. I target the child with this action;
the child receives this package of being made to eat. puqvaD.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name