[Tlhingan-hol] Objects, direct and indirect

[Will Martin]

For anyone who hasn’t been reading this for years, I probably should start by revealing my personal mission with the Klingon language. For me, it’s a matter of proving the language’s capacity to express a wide variety of meanings, in some cases more clearly than in English. I’m less interested in toying with strange grammar and pushing the fringes of what grammatical constructions are allowable than I am in actually reading and writing meaningful ideas in Klingon and helping others figure out how to do the same.

Comments below.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Nov 23, 2015, at 10:49 AM, Rohan Fenwick <qeslagh at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> jIjatlhpu' jIH:
> ...
> 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?

Well, consider who is causing whom or what to remember, and what they are remembering. We cause each other to remember. The {-chuq} defines the direct object. But you want this direct object to become an indirect object, like {wo'rIv} in {wo’rIvvaD tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH}, so that you can make room for the third person noun referred to with the {wI-} prefix. That’s pretty radical. I think it’s fair to call that problematic.

If it works, then we could just solve our little {ja’chuq} problem with {*wIja’chuqmoH*}, right? The “each other” part of {-chuq} now becomes the indirect object so that we can use {wI-} to point to a new direct object, right?

Well, maybe not so much.

If this is true, then Okrand needs to publish an addendum to his addendum because you are stretching the grammar way beyond the bounds of what we’ve been given so far.

For myself, I’m already challenged to do a decent job of translating normal ideas into or from normal Klingon grammar and vocabulary. I don’t feel so driven to warp the rules in significant ways in order to solve nonexistent problems with the language. You are accomplishing nothing here in terms of expanding what the language can express. You are just toying with rules that you’d probably find boring if you didn’t get to play with them.

These are basic, fundamental rules of grammar. Why are they so hard for you to accept? And why aren’t you writing more in Klingon and writing about it less?

Why am *I* writing so much about it and writing in it less?

Well, because these arguments are verbose, and Klingon is not an inherently verbose language or culture.

> 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.

It’s not the best explanation for me.

I see it as one of four things, in order of increasing violation of known grammar:

1. It’s a direct quote, and should have been punctuated {<<quv.>> HIja’chuqQo’!}

2. {ja’chuq} has now been declared a separate root verb from {ja’}. It can take direct objects other than the members of the plural subject.

3. Something else that neither you nor I have thought of yet.

4. Your theory that the clear description of how {-chuq} works stops applying if {-moH} is added. Suddenly, there are grammatical constructions that are possible that were never possible before. It doesn’t add anything to what we can express with the language, but it does make for weirder sentences that can’t be called invalid.
...

> QeS 'utlh 
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