On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 12:14 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

I don't think you can use it for any application of -vaD, only for when -vaD indicates an indirect object. In your qaHoHqang example, for instance, SoH is not an indirect object: SoH benefits from the action, but the action does not result in something actually given to SoH.

Out of the three verbs I can think of that have been used with the prefix trick -- nob, 'ang, and jatlh -- only the first involves actually giving someone something. In the case of tIqwIj Sa'angnIS or tlhIngan Hol qajatlh, tlhIH or SoH are benefiting from the action but aren't really getting anything out of it physically.

I didn't say anything about physically. The target of the prefix is someone who receives the outcome of the action. Sa'ang: you receive the outcome of my showing, you see something; qajatlh: you receive the outcome of my speaking, you hear something. But with muqab, I don't receive the outcome of its being bad. Nothing actually happens to me.

(Also, is the assumed distinction between meanings of -vaD a carryover from the ways that suffix is translated into English? Do Klingon grammarians make a distinction between the jIHvaD in jiHvaD taj Danobpu' and in jIHvaD qab tera'ngan Soj 'Iq?)

I don't think so. I think Okrand was looking for a way to express "indirect object," and saw that -vaD often did that job, because one sort of beneficiary is an indirect object. So he gives it this role in TKD Addendum 6.8. "The indirect object may be considered the beneficiary," not that the beneficiary may be considered the indirect object.

And the prefix trick works with indirect objects, not beneficiaries.

You can look at it this (inexact) way: Klingon has the distinct semantic roles of "indirect object" and "benefactive," and both are marked with the "beneficiary" suffix, -vaD.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name