[Tlhingan-hol] {-moH}

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

The problem here is not really a matter of confusion. I’m certainly not confused about this at all. 

The problem is that a verb with {-moH} essentially does NOT follow the convention that you have described, if it could take direct objects before it had {-moH} added. For those verbs, they become “ditransitive”. Now, they can have either of two “objects” unmarked nouns preceding the verb. Either of the two nouns can be, alone, unmarked, preceding the verb. If we want to be explicit about both nouns, we mark one with {-vaD} and recognize that though we’ve spent years pretending that it’s the direct object, it’s actually an indirect object, and unlike indirect objects anywhere else in Klingon grammar except for the prefix trick, it’s okay to not mark it as indirect, unless you also have an explicit direct object.

Until this, the indirect object of any verb was always indicated by {-vaD}, but for any stative verb with {-moH} it’s direct object is… well… sort of indirect, judging by the way that root verbs are treated that can take direct objects, once they get {-moH}.

In other words, since it’s okay to say:

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuvvaD pab ghojmoH SuStel.

SuStel teaches lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv grammar.

The entity who is learning is lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv, the indirect object of {ghojmoH}. The direct object of “causing to learn” is grammar. This is now established canon.

So, even though we would normally say, “The fire causes the room to be hot,” as {pa tujmoH qul}, this really suggests that the explicit, proper way to say this would be {pa’vaD tujmoH qul}, since the established canon tells us that the thing that is caused to be hot must be, by definition, the indirect object. We’ve just spent a couple decades failing to mark it that way with {-vaD}. It’s a pity that this misunderstanding has dragged on for so long before being revealed.

Unless someone would like to suggest that the grammar is fundamentally different for stative verbs than for verbs that can take a direct object...

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



> On Nov 22, 2015, at 1:17 PM, Tim Stoffel <tim at lionlamb.us> wrote:
> 
> Could a lot of the confusion here be cleared up by the fact that Klingon
> has a strict word order, and that the object of a verb is indicated by
> its position in the sentence? In that case a marker for only an indirect
> object would be needed, as the direct object (and usually the only
> object) is apparent by its position in the sentence?
> 
> Tim Stoffel
> 
> --
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>
> To: Klingon language email discussion forum <tlhingan-hol at kli.org>
> Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] {-moH}
> Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2015 12:19:57 -0500
> 
> It’s interesting that you’d mark my term “agent of causation” as a problem, and then replace it with “causer”, which is mysteriously less of a problem.
> 
> I get it.
> 
> You are saying that unlike any other verb suffix, {-moH} changes the action of the verb. Now, the verb is not doing the action of the root verb. It’s doing the causing of the action of what is now a different verb. So, {ghojmoH} does not actually mean “cause to learn”. {ghojmoH} now actually MEANS “teach”. So, any object of the verb “teach” is the valid object of {ghojmoH}.
> 
> It’s not that I don’t understand this. I just don’t like it. No other suffix acts like this, changing the nature of the objects of the root verb on which they are attached.
> 
> lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
> Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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