On 7/28/2016 3:01 PM, Alan Anderson wrote:
On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:48 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
If I wanted to say I cause the Klingon to please himself, that could be tlhIngan vIbel'eghmoH jIH. I'm unable to parse that in a way that makes sense. It seems to be missing something, but I can't quite figure out what. The more I look at it, the less I understand it.
I am doing something. Something is being done to the Klingon. Subject and object. The -'egh tells me that the performer of bel (and not the subject, as TKD says) pleases himself; the -moH tells me that the subject of the sentence causes the action to happen. {bel} is "be pleased", so {bel'egh} is weird. It would have to be {bel'eghmoH} to become "make himself pleased" or "please himself"...but then there's no way to add another subject causing the action without using an additional verb.
You're right, that example doesn't work. I think I was slipping into thinking *bel* was /please./ -- SuStel http://trimboli.name