[Tlhingan-hol] Because you mentioned it (Was: Expressing instrumentality)

[SuStel]

On 4/21/2016 5:06 PM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv wrote:
> 1. My room is clean. {Say’ pa’wIj.}

*pa'wIj* is "doing" something (in Klingon, "being" something is "doing" 
something), so *pa'wIj* is the subject.

> 2. I clean my room. {pa’wIj vISay’moH}. I cause my room to be clean.

*jIH* is doing something: it is causing cleaning to happen. It is the 
subject. *pa'wIj* is having something done to it: you are making it 
clean. It is the direct object.

> 3. My sister learns Klingon language. {tlhIngan Hol ghoj be’nI’wI’.}

*be'nI'wI'* is doing something: she is learning Klingon. She is the 
subject. *tlhIngan Hol* is having something done to it: it is being 
learned. It is the direct object.

> 4. I teach my sister. {be’nI’wI’ vIghojmoH.} I cause my sister to learn.

*jIH* is doing something: it is causing learning to happen. It is the 
subject. *be'nI'wI'* is having something done to her: she is having 
something taught to her. She is the direct object.

> 5. I teach the Klingon language. {tlhIngan Hol vIghojmoH.} Houston, we 
> have a problem. I don’t cause the Klingon language to learn, so the 
> suffix {-moH} is doing something fundamentally different here than it 
> was in examples 2 or 4. Nothing in TKD explains this. Nothing from 
> Okrand since then has explained this.

*jIH* is doing something: it is causing learning to happen. It is the 
subject. *tlhIngan Hol* is having something done to it: it is being 
learned. It is the direct object.

> 6. I teach my sister Klingon language. {be’nI’wI’vaD tlhIngan Hol 
> vIghojmoH.} So, if this is correct, one is drawn toward changing 
> example 2 to {pa’wIjvaD jISay’moH}, and the fourth example should be 
> {be’nI’wI’vaD jIghojmoH}. If that were the case, then everything would 
> make sense, but we’ve never seen anything close to that in canon.

*jIH* is doing something: it is causing learning to happen. It is the 
subject. *tlhIngan Hol *is having something done to it: it is being 
learned. It is the direct object. *be'nI'wI'* is receiving the benefit 
of the action: she takes the teaching of Klingon that happens. She is 
the indirect object.

It all works.

Why aren't those objects the other way round? Because if *be'nI'wI'* 
were the one the action was performed on, it would be incorrect to say 
that *tlhIngan Hol* receives the result of that action. That would be 
syntactically sound but semantically nonsensical. It would be like 
saying /I taught your sister to the Klingon language./ Or /Colorless 
green ideas sleep furiously./ It's syntactically legal, but it makes no 
sense.

> So, we’re forced to assume that either there are grammatical rules we 
> are clueless about that Okrand has never explained,

Not really. You're just adding a grammatical rule that Okrand never 
stated: that a given verb must have an exact meaning for its subjects 
and objects. This is not the case: *ghoj* doesn't have a set meaning for 
what its object must be, and neither does *ghojmoH*. It's got meanings 
that'll make sense and meanings that don't, but the only thing that 
/really/ matters, and the only thing that TKD tells us, is that the noun 
phrase before the verb is the object—and, with the addition of section 
6.8, it's the /direct/ object.

Okrand never defines what an//object is, except when he's explaining 
indirect objects, where he says, "While the object of the verb is the 
recipient of the action, the indirect object may be considered the 
beneficiary." That's as much explanation as we ever get. In other words, 
he expects us to already know what the words /object, direct object,/ 
and /indirect object/ mean.

A direct object has the action done to it. An indirect object receives 
the result of the action.

So when he constructs things like *ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH,* he's not 
thinking in terms of semantic roles of the nouns (agent, causer, 
patient, experiencer, etc.); he's using syntax only. *wo'rIvvaD quHDaj 
qawmoH Ha'qujDaj* /Worf's sash reminds him of his heritage./ 
*Ha'qujDaj,* the doer, performs an action—or in this case, /causes/ an 
action to be performed—on something. *quHDaj,* the done-to, has an 
action performed on it (being remembered). *worIv,* the receiver, is the 
one affected by the subject acting on the direct object.

> If Okrand expects us to use {-moH} effectively, he should come forward 
> and explain it, in detail, because he has radically changed the way it 
> works from the way he described it in TKD. There is no other segment 
> of grammar that he has handled worse. He’s had time. It just doesn’t 
> bother him to leave this dangling. But it bothers me.

Or maybe it makes perfect sense, once you realize what he's doing, in 
which case there's nothing for him to explain. He said it all in TKD. 
Nothing has changed.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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