[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Will Martin]

I offer my thanks for clarifying with authoritative canon examples why I hate this little corner of Klingon grammar. Details below.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 21, 2015, at 9:55 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> De'vID:
> ... For example: {luyu'nISbej} "I am certain that they need to interrogate him”
> ...
> 
> Some suffixes affect "the action" itself: {-choH}, {-qa'}, {-moH},
> {-laH}, {-lu'}. {-moH} is a bit weird because the subject of the verb
> with this suffix is not the subject of the verb without it. {-lu'} is
> even weirder because it changes the roles of the subject and object.
> Some other suffixes change what/who the action is being done to:
> {-'egh}, {-chuq}. Some express something about the speaker or the
> listener: {-chu'}, {-bej'}, {-law'}, {-ba'}, {-neS}.
> 
> There is some ambiguity as to what meaning is applied to what
> primarily when {-moH} and {-lu'} are involved with another suffix.
> Some other pairs can also cause ambiguity in combination, like {-choH}
> and {-laH}. (Does {QongchoHlaH} mean "begin to be able to sleep" or
> "able to begin to sleep"?)
> 
> As the type 2 and type 6 suffixes are described in TKD, {luyu'nISpu'}
> cannot mean that the need to interrogate is a completed action. Type 2
> suffixes don't change the action described by the verb, they merely
> describe the amount of volition the subject has in carrying it out.

This was my initial point of confusion. When we combine a Type 2 suffix, which you describe as describing something about the subject, and {-moH} or {-lu’}, which change the identity of the subject, what does the Type 2 suffix apply to?

This was my initial problem with {HeghqangmoHlu’}. When I first saw it, I assumed it had to mean “One is willing to cause him to die,” and Okrand’s translation of “It caused him to be willing to die,” made me wince. “Hate” is probably not too strong a word. It violated my understanding of how these suffixes worked. In that translation, {-qang} is applied to the subject of the original root verb, not the agent of causation (my term because, well, that’s what the subject is for a verb with {-moH}), which is the subject of {HeghmoH}. I saw it as broken grammar.

Eventually, I accepted the translation because, hey, Okrand made up this language, and this is what he says it means, but instead of patching over my understanding of how this specific area works, I just avoided it at all costs. There are enough other things to say in Klingon that I don’t need this particular combination of suffixes. This is my coping mechanism for most ugly grammar in Klingon, and this is one of the ugliest corners of Klingon grammar. 

All the “ditransitive” {-moH} related stuff is, in my not-humble-enough opinion is broken because we basically have a language with no functional mechanism for handling ditransitive verbs that, late in the development of the language had {-moH} used to create ditransitive verbs, with Okrand being uncharacteristically lazy, allowing many years to pass without ever describing how this is supposed to work. And how does this interact with Type 2 verb suffixes that are supposed to apply to the subject? Apparently, it’s supposed to apply to the subject of the action of the root verb, and not to the subject of the verb+{-moH}, which is the agent of causation (my term, because Okrand doesn’t GIVE us a term). 

If I stick to Okrand’s terms, then {-qang} is supposed to apply to the subject of a verb without {-moH} and to one of the two objects of the verb WITH {-moH} (and we don’t have any terms to differentiate the two objects of the verb+{-moH}).

> Like I wrote, {-moH} is weird, and {-lu'} is weirder. Together,
> they're even worse. But I have no problem with {-moH} indicating a
> change in volition (from non-willing to willing) here. That doesn't
> mean that the "action" here is {Heghqang}. The action of the verb
> isn't mentioned at all in the definition of {-moH}.
> 
> ...
> {-moH} changes the role of the subject, whereas {-choH} changes the action.

So, if {-moH} changes the role of subject, then one would expect that by doing so, it changed the entity that the Type 2 suffix applies to, but in {HeghqangmoHlu’}, this is not the case. The new role of subject apparently doesn’t include having willingness ascribed to it, unless what you are saying is that the new role of the (old) subject is one of two objects of the new subject.

> QeS:
>> Similarly for {SuvqangmoHbej} and {SuvqangmoHchu'} from the paq'batlh.
> 
> So this is an example which shows that {-qang} (type 2) and {-moH}
> (type 4) together can result in ambiguity.
> 
> Going strictly by what's in TKD, {-qang} should express willingness on
> the part of the subject. We saw with {-lu'} that this isn't
> necessarily the case (because it changes the role of the subject).

Okay, if I understand you, what you are REALLY saying is that {-lu’} “changes the role” of TWO nouns. One noun (real or implied) is the subject of the action of the root verb, and the other noun (ALWAYS implied) is the indefinite subject. In this case the direct object (in terms of grammatical placement of the noun) is the subject of the root verb, and you are saying that the Type 2 suffix continues to apply to the original subject of the root verb, even though it has been reassigned to the syntactical role of direct object. Willingness never applies to the indefinite subject, or if it does, I don’t know that we’ve ever been given an example of this being the case in canon.

Basically, what you are saying is that {-lu’} and {-moH} change the syntactic placement of the subject noun without changing the semantic function of subject of the root verb, and the Type 2 verb suffix always applies to the semantic function of subject, not the syntactically placed subject.

> Here, it seems {-moH} with {-qang} can also result in ambiguity.

Up to this point, I had started to think there is no ambiguity. I had forgotten the counterexamples in canon. Thank you for reminding me. It’s been years since my last extended, nasty, pointless argument over this area of grammar.

> Here is the relevant canon (any other examples?):
> {jIbwIj vISay'nISmoH} "I need to make-clean my hair" (and not "I make
> my hair need to be clean")
> {[qeylIS] SuvqangmoHchu' molor} "[Molor] fueled [Kahless]' will to
> fight" (and not "Molor is willing to make Kahless fight")
> 
> One of three things must be true:
> 1) a type 2 suffix with {-moH} results in ambiguity
> 2) {-nIS} and {-qang} behave differently with respect to {-moH}
> 3) the paq'batlh uses weird grammar
> 
> Absent other evidence, it seems (1) should be assumed to be true.

Right.

Okay, so there IS ambiguity. wejpuH.

You’ve reminded me that I already knew about the first example you cite, and I had concluded that, according to canon, adjectival verbs, like {Say’} behave differently from other verbs, like {Hegh} in this regard. I think there may even be messages in the archive where I argued this point, just before deciding that the whole thing is messy enough that I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

So, with more than usual quantities of canon now showing us that {-moH} makes the noun that Type 2 verb suffixes apply to impossible to assign with certainty, added to the messiness of {-moH} creating two objects in a language with no mechanism for handling two objects, I hate {-moH} even more than I did the FIRST time I got into flame wars over it.

Being older now, I don’t want to argue about this any more. I just want to stop using {-moH}, except in the simplest mono-transitive way that Okrand fully explained to us in TKD, avoiding ever using it with a Type 2 suffix.

You can’t make me. You can’t make me. You can’t make me.

And whenever anyone else writes anything using these really ugly, ambiguous grammatical constructions, I will do my best to ignore them without comment.

I love the Klingon language for the range of things it can say clearly; sometimes more clearly than English. I love the way that it presses one to be clear about certain areas of meaning in an expression. I love it for what it can do.

This is why there are certain things I deeply enjoy writing in Klingon. Not just translating. Writing. Speaking. Inventing.

I find relief when troubleshooting something that refuses to gracefully reveal the problem to utter: {yIqay’Qo’!} There really isn’t anything in English that quite expresses my meaning as clearly and succinctly. When I sit at an excessively long traffic light, I enjoy saying, {SSSSSSSS… tugh…} and usually the light responds by changing sooner than it might otherwise have changed, had it not gained insight into its potential fate were it less responsive. There are these places in my life that Klingon expressions fill elegantly.

But I dislike the broken areas that are unnecessarily ambiguous or poorly constructed. Combining Type 2 verb suffixes with {-lu’} or {-moH} are ambiguous enough to be uninteresting to me, because using them fails to speak clearly, and using {-moH} to create a ditransitive verb is broken grammar because the sentence structure in Klingon has no place for the second object. We hobble along, most frequently using {-vaD} for one of the two objects — most often for the semantic subject of the original root verb, though Okrand has never explained this as a means of cleaning up the mess created by what I can only interpret as a careless extension of known grammar without any sense of responsibility for explaining it.

The last time I faced this ugly mess, it lead to a pointless argument, all heat with no substance and no conclusion that made all else so unrewarding here that I left the list for an extended period.

Do what you will with it. It’s simply not an area of interest to me. There is much else about the language that is more rewarding.

> ...
> -- 
> De'vID
> 
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