[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC : Sentences as objects

[SuStel]

On 11/18/2015 9:59 AM, Will Martin wrote:

> If I wanted to say “Someone told me, 'Go home,’” I’d translate it as
> {muja’ vay’. jatlh. <<juH yIghoS.>>} Literally it means “Someone told
> me. He/she said. Go home.” That’s the clearest way that I can express
> that some unidentified person said, “Go home,” to me. You could scramble
> this around several ways. You could say, {vIja’lu’. jatlh. <<juH
> yIghoS.>> or {vIja’lu’. <<juH yIghoS.>> jatlh.}

In the HolQeD article on this topic, Okrand said that {ja'} is also a 
verb of saying, so {muja'pu' vay', juH yIghoS} "someone told me, 'go 
home'" is an acceptable sentence. (Also {juH yIghoS, muja'pu' vay'}.) 
And don't forget {qaja'pu' jonta' neH} "I told you, engine only."

I'd also add the {-pu'}, as I did above, because the telling is a 
completed action.

> I tend to differentiate between {ja’} (to tell, as in to speak TO
> SOMEONE) and {jatlh} (to say, as in to say SOMETHING). The object of
> {ja’} tends to be the person(s) spoken to, while the object of {jatlh}
> tends to be the thing spoken (the words, the language, the speech,
> whatever).

I don't think we've ever seen an unambiguous instance of {ja'} taking a 
DIRECT object. We know it can take some kind of object, e.g., {qaja'pu'} 
"I told you," but since the prefix trick lets first- and second-person 
object prefixes point to elided indirect object pronouns instead of the 
direct object, it's possible that in {qaja'pu'} the {qa-} is indicating 
that "you" are the indirect object. We also know that a direct object is 
not required for this construction, as in the example {qajatlh} "I speak 
to you."

Considering the large number of instances of {ja'} in the canon, it's 
odd that finding one with an unambiguous direct object is so difficult.

I also think it's quite possible that the direct object of {ja'} is the 
thing being told: a status {Dotlh}, for instance. {Dotlh yIja'} "report 
status!"

-- 
SuStel
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