[Tlhingan-hol] Objects, direct and indirect

Sat Nov 21 20:43:35 PST 2015

I suspect you are completely right on this one, though I’ve argued against that point in the past.

Basically, what we have is something messier than anything else in Klingon grammar in terms of assigning a role for a noun in a sentence. We normally have an unmarked place for a subject (the agent of the action of the verb) following the verb, an unmarked place for a direct object (the recipient or target of the action of the verb) before the verb, and everything else is marked with a type 5 noun suffix.

So, with {-moH}, we apparently have two different nouns that can be unmarked before the verb.

Instead of an unmarked subject following the verb, we have an unmarked agent of cause. He’s not the one doing the action. He’s the one causing the action to be done.

The unmarked noun before the verb with {-moH} can apparently be either the subject (the agent of the action of the verb), or the direct object (the recipient or target of the action) of the verb. He who causes the action is in the place normally held by he who does the action, and either he who does the action or he who has the action done to him are now in the spot normally reserved for he who has the action done to him.

In a sentence constructed as {noun1 verb-moH noun2}, the only tool we have to determine what role noun1 has in the sentence is to recognize from the context of normal action of the verb what sort of noun normally is the subject and what sort of noun normally is the object.

It’s easier with {ghoj} because a person usually learns, and a language or some other topic is usually learned, but what if you have something like {SuvI’ qIpmoH ra’wI’}? Is the warrior being caused to hit, or is someone else being caused to hit him?

It’s an element similar to the famous indigenous language that can’t say, “The man bit the dog”, because it just gives you “man” and “dog” and “bite” in random order and you have to figure out from context who is biting whom. Since dogs are expected to bite men and not the other way around, there simply aren’t any grammatical tools to use in order to express the less common statement.

I’ve enjoyed having the Klingon language more versatile in its capacity to express ideas than this. Now, it’s muddier.

Before we decided that we could use {-‘e’} to disambiguate relative clauses, we had a similar problem with relative clauses. {loD leghbogh puq mev yaS}. Did the officer stop the child who saw the man, or did he stop the man who was seen by the child? Unless we optionally choose to mark one of the two nouns with {-‘e’}, we can’t tell, unless some other context suggests one choice over the other.

Now, verbs with {-moH} are like that.

wejpuH.

It just makes the language less fun for me, and if I’m not into this for the fun, why am I bothering to maintain a dictionary?

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably

> On Nov 21, 2015, at 10:02 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 11/20/2015 11:21 PM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh wrote:
>> I have a nasty suspicion that when dealing with the specific verb and
>> suffix {ghojmoH} that the translator may have fallen to the English
>> “teach” without considering that it really means “cause to learn.”
> 
> Okrand was the translator. Errors are always possible. However, this is hardly an isolated case.
> 
> Another example is our old friend, {ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH} "it reminds him of his heritage." Once again, we have what appears to be a "ditransitive" verb, but what we get is the semantic direct object dominating over the semantic indirect object for the syntactic object position.
> 
> {-moH} doesn't mean "subject becomes object," it means "subject causes verb to happen." What verb DOES never changes. The direct and/or indirect objects of the verb must be determined semantically, by deciding what the action is done TO (direct object) and whom the action is done FOR (indirect object). It's not determined by a syntactic rule.
> 
> Hence, all of these are valid:
> 
>   ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH 'oH
>   it reminds him of his heritage
> 
>   ghaH qawmoH 'oH
>   it reminds him
> 
>   ghaHvaD qawmoH 'oH
>   it reminds him (of things in general)
> 
>   quHlIj qaqawmoH
>   I remind you of your heritage
> 
>   SoHvaD quHlIj vIqawmoH
>   I remind you of your heritage
> 
> and maybe even
> 
>   quHwIj vIqawmoHlu'
>   I am reminded of my heritage
> 
> though I don't feel comfortable going so far as
> 
>   quHwIj vIqaw'eghmoH
>   I remind myself of my heritage
> 
> > I think that a verb’s relationship with its objects are among the
> > most arbitrary of elements in language. A direct object is really
> > almost like a clipped form of an indirect object or a prepositional
> > object, chosen for a specific verb. Another verb may have a different
> > link to the same object.
> 
> Yes, but the link is semantic, not syntactic. Semantically, the target of {ghojmoH} is the thing learned and the recipient of {ghojmoH} is the person who learns it. Syntactically, the object (not direct object) of {ghojmoH} is simply the thing to which {ghojmoH}, whatever it means, is done.
> 
> Syntax is structure; semantics is meaning. Syntactically, Klingon sentences have one subject and one object (not including null cases), and any other words are syntactically just "other words that come at the beginning." Semantically, Klingon sentences have subjects (who do the verb) direct objects (on whom the verb occurs) and indirect objects (who receives the action; again, not including null cases), and either direct or indirect object can be placed in the syntactic object position, with direct objects trumping indirect objects. The verb prefix agrees with one of those semantic roles; it is not chosen syntactically.
> 
> It's not enough to say "such-and-such verb takes such-and-such noun as its direct object." You have to specify what sorts of direct AND indirect objects are allowed, and they will be governed by the rules I've presented.
> 
> You can't just say, "the object of {ja'} is the person spoken to." The semantic direct object of {ja'} is the thing said; the semantic indirect object is the person spoken to. Once you've got that, you know that either of those can be the syntactic object, and that the thing said trumps the person it's said to if there's a question as to which one becomes the syntactic object, and that you can use the prefix trick to refer to an implicit first- or second-person told-to person while also using the thing said explicitly.
> 
> > Forgive me if I continue to express things in ways that better fit
> > more conventional grammatical constructions.
> 
> List conventions have never been good at explaining things like {ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH} or {SengmeywIj vIja'laHbe'} or why the prefix trick works. A more subtle understanding is needed. Klingon is not, dare I say, a mere code where you can plug words into subject and object positions and expect to be speaking correctly. In Klingon sentences, semantics are REQUIRED in order to understand why things work the way they do, and in order to form better sentences.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://www.trimboli.name/
> 
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