[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Will Martin]

Thinking further on it, I think {-choH} does apply to the subject and verb and object. There may be a giant hall chocked FULL of people holding swords, so blade-holding is happening all over the place over a long span of time, but when THIS individual subject begins to hold this individual object, the {-choH} moment of the statement is triggered, and this boy becomes a man.

He could begin to hold a rock. Nope. Not a man yet. Someone else could begin to hold his sword. Nope. Still not a man. He buys the sword. Nope. Still not a man. He admires his sword. Nope. Still not a man.

He begins to hold his sword. Poof! Got it. Manhood.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 22, 2015, at 9:23 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 12/22/2015 7:40 AM, De'vID wrote:
> 
>> We have a canon example of {-choH} with {-laH} on TKW p.177:
>> {wa' jaj 'etlh 'uchchoHlaH tlhIngan puqloD; jajvetlh loD nen moj}
>> "The son of a Klingon is a man the day he can first hold a blade."
>> 
>> Here, {'uchchoHlaH} is translated as "can first hold", i.e., "begins
>> to be able to hold". {-laH} indicates ability. {-choH} indicates a
>> change in state. So {'uchchoHlaH} means "he is able to hold (whereas
>> he wasn't able to hold before)".
>> 
>> Possibly in another context it can be translated as "is able to begin
>> to hold", i.e., "he is able to hold (whereas he wasn't holding
>> before)", though I don't see a big difference between the two
>> translations. Maybe someone can come up with an example using another
>> verb that makes the difference more striking.
> 
> Either interpretation works.
> 
> Thinking about it a little more, I'm not sure that {-choH} necessarily has to apply to any element of the verb in particular. It's not "change of action" or "change of subject," it's "change of state of affairs before the action."
> 
> Before, he isn't able to hold a blade, there was no blade-holding; now he is and there is. A change of state has occurred. It's not necessary to specify whether {'uch} or {-laH} has changed.
> 
> Meanwhile, {-laH} has no explanatory text to help us disambiguate.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name
> 
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