[Tlhingan-hol] Objects, direct and indirect

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

I’m pretty sure we’ve never had an example of an explicit direct object in a sentence with a prefix that indicates no direct object. You might consider {-chuq} to have a direct object, since the various subjects are doing the action to each other, but that doesn’t seem to be an interpretation consistent with the examples we’ve been given. Certainly, there’s no indication that this is an invitation to have the verb behave as being “ditransitive” with a subject as the direct object and an unmarked noun preceding the verb as another direct object.

Basically, you are making up your own grammar and figuring that since it makes sense to you, it should make sense to everyone else, even if it has nothing to do with the grammar we’ve been given in TKD and it’s never been done in canon.

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



> On Nov 22, 2015, at 4:44 AM, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> SuStel:
>> [...]
>> I think what's happening here is not that these verbs can take different
>> direct objects at different times, but rather that Klingon syntax does not
>> distinguish between direct and indirect objects at all, even when it does so
>> semantically.
>> [...]
> 
> I wonder how multiple objects would work with {-chuq}?
> 
> Can one say {quv maja'chuq}?
> 
> What about {Qu'maj maqawchuqmoH}?
> 
> SuStel:
>> [...]
>> 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.
> 
> I am imagining an A'bot & Koste'loh routine involving Klingons
> commanders named L'ut ({lut}) and Dok'lh ({Dotlh}) and their
> unfortunate subordinates who are trying to relay a story and a status
> report between them.
> 
> (We know that Klingon names can sometimes coincide with common words,
> like {Qel} "Krell" and {paq} "Pok".)
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
> 
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