[Tlhingan-hol] Question regarding purpose clauses

[Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh]

I'm not going to jump too deep into this, having made most of my points in
the Facebook discussion already, but there are a couple of things I want to
address.

ghItlhpu' SuStel, jatlh:
> The purpose clause describes the purpose of the noun or verb to which it
> is attached. In the example sentence, {qIpmeH} "in order to hit" can
> *only* be describing the purpose of {Qatlh'a'} "is it difficult?"
>
> Let's drop the question for a moment. *{qIpmeH Qatlh} "it is difficult
> to hit." This means, literally, "it has the quality of being difficult
> so that it can hit." (Let's also ignore the seemingly wrong subject and
> object combination... "so that it can hit"?)

That's a straw man. The translation could just as easily be "X has the
quality of being difficult so that Y can hit X"; the null pronominal prefix
on {qIp} allows for either interpretation.

taH:
> Now, I'd also be interested if you could try to explicitly identify the
> subject and object (if any) of {qIpmeH}, and the subject of {Qatlh'a'}.
> Is *what* difficult?

Here, I think we're relying overly much on the English gloss of {Qatlh} as
"be difficult". {Qatlh} also means "be complex":

motlh ray' luSamlaHmeH De' Qatlh cha' tlhIngan Duj jIH'a'
"the main viewer on a Klingon ship is usually overlaid with a complex target
acquisition grid"
(SP3)

which shows that an object can also be {Qatlh}. I suggest that "challenging"
is an appropriate gloss in the example of {qIpmeH Qatlh'a'}.

And I hate to delve into an Earth language for a parallel, but in French one
can also use a purpose clause ("pour" + infinitive) in such cases:

il va pour savoir - he goes in order to find out (or know)
c'est difficile pour savoir - it is difficult to know

For that matter, it's quite normal in Ubykh too (purpose clauses in -ewtın):

azbyewtın sk'ieq'e - I went in order to see him
yısreğet'uewtın acebye - it is difficult for him to climb
(more literally, "in order for him to climb *it*, it is difficult", as Ubykh
has object agreement in verbs like Klingon does)

In the clipped {qIpmeH Qatlh'a'} I interpret it thus: the subject of {qIp}
is the person doing the hitting, the object of {qIp} is the thing being hit,
and the subject of {Qatlh} is also the thing being hit.

The original question of ??{'ughmeH taj 'ut} is, of course, another issue
entirely.

QeS 'utlh