[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Bellerophon, modeler]

De'vID wrote:

>
> Is anything needed here which isn't in TKD?
>
> 4.2.2: Suffixes of this type express how much choice the subject has
> about the action described or how predisposed the subject is to doing
> it. {-nIS} need.
>
> 4.2.4: {-moH} cause. Adding this suffix to a verb indicates that the
> subject is causing a change of condition or causing a new condition to
> come into existence.
>
> 4.2.7: {-pu'} perfective. This suffix indicates that an action is
> completed. It is often translated by the English present perfect (have
> done something).
>
> {vISay'nISmoH} means that I cause something to be clean, and I need
> that to be done. That means "I need to clean something", not "I cause
> something to need to be clean", since the subject of the verb is doing
> the needing.
>

Also in TKD is {HeghqangmoHlu'pu'} <it made him/her willing to die>.
Perhaps {-lu} makes this an exceptional case, since presumably you wouldn't
be discussing the volition of an indefinite/unspecified subject. However,
would {vIHeghqangmoHpu'} mean <I made him/her willing to die> or <I
willingly made him/her die>? The former, I think, since if I made him die,
I must have killed him, so I'd simply say {vIHoHqangpu'} <I killed him/her
willingly>. (Though this could generally mean <I complete being willing to
kill him/her>. Killing or changing one's mind are the two ways the
perfective aspect would enter into this. The ambiguity makes me think this
would be a perfect response by the huntsman when the queen asks if he's
killed Snow White.)
So in this example from TKD, cause and perfective aspect are on the part of
the unspecified object, but the (presumably still incomplete) action and
volition are clearly on the part of the object.

It seems to me semantics intrudes into the grammar, and the scope of the
suffixes has to do with the fact that there are two agents, the one who is
willing to die and the one that has caused/will have caused this new
condition. The context is important, but I'd rather not just leave it at
that. Saying "depends on context" sounds a lot like a professor dismissing
a student's question that he isn't interested in discussing.

~'eD

-- 
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