[Tlhingan-hol] {-moH}

[chransberry@gmail.com]

This is a very interesting discussion, but I don't understand what all the confusion is about. If a causative suffix is added to a transitive verb, then of course there are two objects! There's the one being acted on, and the one being caused to act. And if they both appear in the same sentence, one has to distinguish between them somehow. Just throwing both into the object place would jam up the sentence. So one needs to be marked, in whatever way makes sense in the context; as a beneficiary or whatever. It's a matter of practicality, not syntax. How is this a problem?

-QISta'


----- Reply message -----
From: "SuStel" <sustel at trimboli.name>
Date: Sun, Nov 22, 2015 17:02
Subject: [Tlhingan-hol] {-moH}
To: <tlhingan-hol at kli.org>

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/

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