[Tlhingan-hol] Objects, direct and indirect

[Rohan Fenwick]

jIjatlhpu' jIH:
> I know of none either, and I'd make substantial bets that we will never,
> ever see that. Agreement prefixes have the function of signalling the
> relationships of the nouns in the sentence to the verb and to each other,

(poD vay')

mujang De'vID, jatlh:
> Okay. What about {quv'e' maja'chuq} and {Qu'maj'e' maqawchuqmoH}?
> Now {quv} and {Qu'maj} have a function in their respective sentences.

Yes,
 with {-'e'} my issues with the pronominal prefixes simply disappear, 
and the first one is fine: "as for honour, we confer". On the 
{Qu'maj'e'} example, though, to me the sense is somewhat different. 
{Qu'maj'e' maqawchuqmoH} actually sounds more like "It's our mission to 
make each other remember". (Literally, it's "as for our mission, we make
 each other remember"; I've just expressed it more idiomatically here, 
in the way that I'd understand that utterance.)

jIjatlhqa'pu':
> In terms of the two sentences given by De'vID: no, I would say that both of
> these are categorically impossible. Both of them would require the
> pronominal prefix {wI-}, at least.

jangqa' je De'vID, jatlh:
> From TKD 4.2.1: This suffix is used only with plural subjects. It is
> translated "each other" or "one another". The prefix set indicating
> "no object" is also used when this suffix is used.

net Sov. That's why I went on to give further explanations and interpretations and didn't just leave that statement hanging.

taH:
> It's not possible to use {wI-} with {-chuq}, at least if we take TKD
> at its word.

That
 takes TKD 4.2.1 not only at its word, but also in isolation and without
 additional and appropriate context. What about {-moH}? It's a tool 
specifically for increasing the count of actants by one, and for 
monovalent verbs, that means adding an object. Whatever you take 
{wIqawchuqmoH} to mean, I contend that it is absolutely grammatical. 
{-chuq} deletes the object of the basic bivalent verb {qaw}. {-moH} adds
 a new object to the newly-monovalent verb {qawchuq}. What's so 
problematic about that?

jIjatlhqa'pu':
> We know from paq'batlh that {ja'chuq} has become lexified with the
> meaning "discuss" and can take an object: {quv HIja'chuqQo'} "do
> not discuss honour with me" (paq'batlh: paq'raD 19.12), so {quv
> wIja'chuq} is grammatical.

jangqa' De'vID, jatlh:
> Do we actually *know* this, or is it just an educated guess as to
> what's going on?

There's a lot of the spectrum between "fact" and "educated guess".

taH:
> That's what I thought when I first saw it, but then it was pointed out
> (by ghunchu'wI' the last time we tried to dissect {quv HIja'chuqQo'}
> on this mailing list) that TKD was very explicit about {ja'chuq}.
> According to TKD 6.2.4: The verb is made up of {ja'} "tell", {-chuq}
> "each other"; thus, "confer" is "tell each other".
> So, the sentence {quv HIja'chuqQo'} contradicts what's written in TKD,
> either in section 4.2.1 or in section 6.2.4.

Yes,
 it does. Blatantly so. But there it is, not only bivalent, but 
prefix-tricked-out into the bargain. The sentence could have quite 
simply been the more pedestrian {quv HIjatlhQo'} "don't talk [about] 
honour to me", but it isn't. It simply begs for an explanation, and the 
best explanation, to me, is simply that {ja'chuq} is here acting as a 
lexified verb that can take an object.

Firstly, we know for a 
fact that some Klingons also lexify other verb-suffix combinations (MSN 
Newsgroup 30 Nov 1997). Although Marc stated in this email that it seems
 to happen only for {-moH}, this (a) was at a stage when relatively less
 was known about Klingon than it is now, and (b) was a hedge in the 
original email anyway ("seems to"), and (c) despite the fact that only 
{chenmoH} and {ja'chuq} were asked about in the email to which Marc was 
responding, he explicitly dodged that specific example in his response. 
Indeed, he finishes his email by noting that {chenmoH} is 
straightforwardly separable, but then closes with "I'll try to answer 
your second question, about {ja'chuq}, in a separate posting." The 
strong implication is that there *is* something more going on with 
{ja'chuq} than with {chenmoH}, something that Marc believed did warrant a
 second and separate posting, but unfortunately he doesn't seem to ever 
have got around to writing said post. And finally, it would make 
particular linguistic sense for {ja'chuq} to have been lexified, since 
it would be rare for a Verb-Type 1 combination to be separated by an 
affix of any sort.

This isn't to say that TKD 6.2.4 is 
superseded, of course, any more than knowing about the verb {lo'laH} "be
 valuable" means that all instances of {lo'laH} "she can use it" are 
necessarily superseded. Hell, in the same way as we can technically say 
{lo'laHlaH} "it can be valuable", perhaps there's such a construction as
 {ja'chuqchuq} "talk about each other". Who knows? The argument 
structure in the paq'batlh example completely precludes the 
interpretation as {ja'} + {-chuq} - but only for itself. The 6.2.4 
example has no object and so still can be interpreted as {ja'} + 
{-chuq}.

taH:
> The "prefix trick" was revealed (or retroactively invented, perhaps)
> after the publication of TKD. How does it interact with {-'egh} and
> {-chuq}, and with SuStel's idea that "Klingon syntax does not
> distinguish between direct and indirect objects at all, even when it
> does so semantically"?

I
 really am not quite sure how the prefix trick and the Type 1 verb 
suffixes interact, and that's what I said explicitly at the end of my 
last email, in the bit about whether or not I accepted {Qu'maj 
wIqawchuqmoH}.

taH:
> We know from canon that we can say {wo'rIvvaD quH qawmoH Ha'quj} "The
> sash reminds Worf of his heritage". Grammatically, {SoHvaD Qu'
> yIqawmoH} "remind you(rself) of the mission" is also possible. Can the
> prefix trick turn this into *{Qu' yIqaw'eghmoH}? This violates the
> rule in TKD 4.2.1 that the prefix set indicating "no object" is used
> with {-'egh}.

And
 again, I think you're taking TKD 4.2.1 in inappropriate isolation, and 
ignoring the fact that {-moH} can add an object to a verb that otherwise
 lacks one. Why should those verbs that lack an object because they have
 an added {-'egh} or {-chuq} be any different from verbs that just 
inherently lack an object? It's dangerous to take any local statement 
from TKD and assume that it applies globally to the entire language 
without qualification.

taH:
> But then again, the prefix trick can put a prefix indicating an object on
> a verb where one would have otherwise expected a "no object" prefix.

So can {-moH}.

taH:
> If {SoHvaD quv vIja'} = {quv qaja'} and {jIHvaD quv Daja'} = {quv
> choja'}, can these be combined using the prefix trick into *{quv
> maja'chuq}? After all, we can combine {qaqIp} and {choqIp} into
> {maqIpchuq}.

There
 are a lot of problems with that idea. Firstly, what would the 
non-prefix-tricked version of this be? Secondly, the prefix trick can 
only *add* an object to the verb prefix, not delete one. Thirdly, 
{maqIpchuq} doesn't mean the same thing as {qaqIp 'ej choqIp}. There 
need not be any second person involved at all in {maqIpchuq}, for that 
matter. It's misleading to talk about these things being "combined". Put
 another way: in English, we can quite happily say "I talk to you about 
honour" and "you talk to me about honour", but does the superficially 
"combined" version "I and you talk to you and me about honour" make any 
sense at all? Finally, combining {qaqIp} and {choqIp} is not the prefix 
trick anyway, so talking about combining concepts "using the prefix 
trick" just doesn't make sense at all to me. I honestly just don't 
understand it.

taH:
> It's true that there's no canon to support this, but it's just a combined
> application of two ideas that we do have canon for: the prefix trick
> and {-chuq}.

I don't think the combined application is as transparent as you believe it to be.

taH:
> As for the objection in the HolQeD 7:4 interview that {bIQtIq jIjaH}
> because {bIQtIq} has no role in the sentence, I don't believe that applies
> to {quv} here. {quv} has the same role in {quv maja'chuq} that it did
> in {quv vIja'} and {quv Daja'}.

That merely begs the question, and in the latter two it's the pronominal prefix that signals the said role, where in the former there is no signal from the pronominal prefix that there's an object present.

taH:
> So far, I don't think {quv maja'chuq} explicitly violates any rules. I
> may be applying two known rules in a way never done before and
> unsupported by any canon example [except possibly {quv HIja'chuqQo'},
> see immediately below], but I don't see an explicit violation. (I
> mean, in the sense that a proposal like *{quv wIja'chuq} explicitly
> violates the "no object" rule for {-chuq}.)

As I said, I continue to think the rule of {rom} is categorical in its prohibition of {quv maja'chuq}.

QeS 'utlh 		 	   		  
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