[Tlhingan-hol] Expressing instrumentality

[lojmIttI'wI'nuv]

Yes, {-meH} combined with {lo’} is the gold standard for instrumentality, well explained.

Meanwhile, just to suggest a variety of approaches:

HoD HoH betleH vIra’bogh.

The be’leH which I commanded killed the captain. In fact, the weapon killed the captain. I didn’t. But I was in control of the weapon when it killed him. That makes the instrumentality pretty clear, though it doesn’t imply the intentionality as well as {HoD vIHoHmeH betleH vIlo’}. Perhaps if I emphasize my role with {HoD HoH betleH vIra’bogh jIH}, that would recapture some of that, especially since it becomes appropriately ambiguous as to whether the betleH I commanded killed the captain, or whether I, who commanded the betleH killed the captain. This is one of those cases where you don’t have to disambiguate because it doesn’t really matter which way you see it. The betleH and I both killed the captain.

Or consider a well placed {-ta’}, if it doesn’t offend some minute rule about perfective.

betleH vIra’meH HoD vIHoH.

Maybe I needed the practice and the captain happened to be standing in the wrong place? Still, it implies instrumentality.

A bit less direct...

betleHwIjmo’ Hegh HoD.

And the ever popular ditransitive, which I hate:

HoDvaD betleHwIj vIHoHmoH.

Note that according to current interpretations of the ditransitivity of {-moH}, this does not imply that I killed someone else for the benefit of the captain. It rather directly suggests that the captain is the object of the transitive verb {HoH}, while {betleHwIj} is the subject, and the implied {jIH} is the agent of causation (my term).

My point is that while instrumentality doesn’t have a grammatical shortcut, like a suffix geared to that, there is a variety of grammatical tools that can be used to express it with varied degrees of efficiency and specificity. Context helps, too.

If I’m standing there with a bloody betleH and the captain alone lies in a spreading puddle of blood, and I say:

betleHwIj vIyanta’.

… that would pretty much fill in all the contextual blanks to tell a story that is quite specific about instrumentality.

It’s a language, not a code. It doesn’t encode instrumentality. It expresses it. The concept of instrumentality is something that a linguist observes while analyzing a language. It’s not necessarily something that a people developing a language build a single tool to express.

vuDwIj neH vIjatlh.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Apr 20, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 20.04.2016 um 08:45 schrieb mayqel qunenoS:
>> I disagree with that sentence. The way I read it, this means :
> 
> That is right. There are slight differences in the meaning if you reverse the word order:
> 
> {betleH vIlo'taHvIS HoD vIHoH}
> "I killed the captain while using the bat'leth."
> Sounds like "I was using my bat'leth for something else, and then accidentally killed the captain"
> 
> {HoD vIHoHmeH betleH vIlo'}
> "In order to kill the captain, I used the bat'leth"
> This is clearer: "It was to kill the captain that I used my bat'leth."
> 
> {mupwI' vIlo'taHvIS raS vIchenmoH} sound like I accidentally built a table while I was using my hammer to put a nail in the wall. :-)
> 
> -- 
> Lieven L. Litaer
> aka Quvar valer 'utlh
> Grammarian of the KLI
> http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
> http://www.klingonwiki.net/En/Instrumentality
> 
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