[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Will Martin]

This is interesting and thoughtful, though I’d break down the first category further. See below.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 21, 2015, at 11:50 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 12/21/2015 9:55 AM, De'vID wrote:
>> 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}.
> 
> I think this is an excellent point, and something we don't pay enough attention to. We should be looking more carefully at the definitions of these suffixes in TKD when we argue about what parts of a sentence or word they affect.
> 
> I'm not sure why you included {-laH} in the list of suffixes that affect "the action." {-laH} doesn't have a definition in TKD beyond "can, able," along with some examples. Based on the examples, and the title "ability" in the name of the Type 5 category, I would assume that {-laH} says something about the subject, not the action. Likewise, {-lu'} and {-moH} only have to do with defining the role of the subject; the action itself remains the same with or without these suffixes.
> 
> I wonder if we can re-categorize these suffixes according to their TKD explanations for examination (ignoring rovers).
> 
> Describe subject:
> -nIS, -qang, -rup, -beH, -vIp, -moH, -lu' -laH
> (Types 2, 4, 5)

Describe the subject:
-nIS, -qang, -rup, -beH, -vIp, and -laH
(Type 2, and half of the Type 5 suffixes)

Reassigns the agent of action of the root verb, my term for what is called the subject anywhere in TKD, to the syntactic role of object, so that a different noun becomes the syntactic subject in the resulting construction:

-moH, -lu’
(Type 4 and the other half of the Type 5 suffixes)

Yes, this is messy. It breaks down the suffixes according to boundaries that don’t match the boundaries of suffix Type. This is part of what makes it messy. The whole reason that the pair {-lu’} and {-laH} is the most common type that tempts us to use two suffixes of the same type, enough that there’s a slang suffix {-luH} to handle that conflict, and it’s the ONLY such slang suffix that Okrand has acknowledged.

This is where the mess begins. And it gets worse.

In particular, this is where {-moH} introduces the idea you like to call “ditransitive” even though Okrand completely avoids the term “transitive” at all. He doesn’t use it anywhere in TKD and is really stubborn to refuse to classify verbs as transitive or intransitive in any context. A verb can merely have an object or not, and the sentence structure gives only one slot for an object, though he shows us that {-vaD} can be used for an indirect object, though he prefers the term “beneficiary”, and he does nothing to explain why the “subject” (since you disallow the term “agent of action”) gets {-vaD} added to it and tossed at the beginning of a sentence when {-moH} is added to a root verb that already could take an object… or sometimes {-vaD} is NOT added to it when there isn’t an explicit object of the action of the root verb before the subject of the root verb became the object of the resulting verb+{-moH}.

Given canon, it seems like that any verb that has a typical capacity of involving a subject and an object, once {-moH} is added, moves the explicit subject to the object slot if there is no explicit object, and gets further moved and appended with {-vaD} if there is an explicit object, even though he never indicates that nouns with {-vaD} are any kind of object. They are “beneficiaries”, which is qualitatively different from “objects”.

And the ONLY time that {-vaD} is optional for a noun is when it is the agent of action of a verb that has an agent of cause also has an explicit direct object.

I know that Klingon has exceptions to rules, but this is an exception to so many rules simultaneously that it makes my skin crawl.

It’s exceptional because of the long sequence of exceptions that dictate when a noun gets {-vaD} assigned to it or not.

All of the following describe the same situation:

QeD Daghoj. You learn science.

qaghojmoH. I cause you to learn.

Here’s where it gets strange:

QeD vIghojmoH.

“I cause science to learn”?!

QeD qaghojmoH.

“I cause you to learn" — and “science” is oddly placed in the position of object of causing to learn, just as we would place things in {Sor vImeQmoH} for “I cause the tree to burn”.

SoHvaD QeD vIghojmoH.

“I cause science to learn for your benefit.” ?!

And nobody understands why I think this is ugly. Some of you are offended by the idea that I think this is ugly. Okrand has given us examples that show that this is how it should be done, but he’s never explained it.

> Describe action:
> -choH, -qa', -pu', -ta', -taH, -lI'
> (Types 3, 7, {-Ha'})
> 
> Express speaker's position:
> -chu', -bej, -law', -ba', -neS
> (Types 6, 8)
> 
> Syntax:
> -DI', -chugh, -pa', -vIS, -bogh, -meH, -'a', -wI', -mo'
> (Type 9)
> 
> Interaction of subject, object, and action:
> -'egh, -chuq
> (Type 1)

I feel like this descriptor misses the primary point of Type 1: That the subject and object become the same entity, either individually (for members of a group) or wholly. That’s the “each other” vs. “self” meaning that requires two different Type 1 suffixes.

> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
> 
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