[Tlhingan-hol] {-moH}

[SuStel]

On 11/22/2015 6:37 PM, lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh wrote:

> 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.

No. You haven't got it at all; you're just plugging words into sockets 
without considering their meanings.

If the fire were caused FOR THE BENEFIT of the room, then {pa'vaD tujmoH 
qul} would be just fine. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. 
But it means something different from {pa' tujmoH qul}, which simply 
says that the fire heats the room.

The {-vaD} still means "beneficiary" when you use it with {-moH}. {-vaD} 
does not mean "indirect object." It just so happens that when you have 
an indirect object it MIGHT be marked with {-vaD}, depending on what 
else is happening in the sentence.

> 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.

I'm trying to figure out if this is sarcasm.

If there's any kind of object, whether it's got {-moH} or not, it goes 
in the object position. If it's potentially got more than one object, 
the agent or patient goes in the object position and the receiver gets 
{-vaD}. If neither of the two potential objects is a receiver, you can't 
say it in one sentence.

That's the simplified version.

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

The grammar is exactly the same.

ghoj tlhIngan
<verb> <agent>

Qong tlhIngan
<verb> <agent>

ghojmoH tera'ngan
<verb> <causer>

QongmoH tera'ngan
<verb> <causer>

tlhIngan ghojmoH tera'ngan
<agent> <verb> <causer>

tlhIngan QongmoH tera'ngan
<agent> <verb> <causer>

Hol ghojmoH tera'ngan
<theme> <verb> <causer>

[no theme related to {Qong}]

tlhInganvaD Hol ghojmoH tera'ngan
<agent>vaD <theme> <verb> <causer>

[no theme related to {Qong}]

Because there is no competition for the object position in a stative 
verb, there is never a need for {-vaD}.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/