[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: {-mo'} noun suffix vs. {-mo'} verb suffix

[lojmIttI'wI'nuv]

Okrand has explained that when a noun and a verb are spelled the same, it’s not the case that you are using a noun as a verb or vise versa. You can’t simply use nouns as verbs or verbs as nouns. {bach} (verb, shoot), and {bach} (noun, shot) are not the same word. They sound alike and in our notation, they are spelled the same, but one is a noun and one is a verb and they are definitely two different words.

It is a very short extension of that idea to say that {-mo’} as a verb suffix and {-mo’} as a noun suffix are two different suffixes that happen to sound a like and have similar meanings.

Okay, so I open TKD and confirm that the noun suffix {-mo’} is introduced among the Type 5 noun suffixes. The verb suffix {-mo’} is not introduced until the Appendix, 4.2.9, page 175:

“This suffix is identical to the Type 5 noun suffix {-mo’} and has the same meaning, /due to, because of/.”

Notice that two different things can be identical to each other, but one thing is not identical unto itself.

If I had a twin, we could be identical to each other.

I don’t have a twin. I am not identical.

The two different {-mo’} suffixes are identical. There is no one {-mo’} suffix used two ways.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Feb 18, 2016, at 3:47 PM, John R. Harness <cartweel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> What is the thought process that leads you to this assertion?
> 
> Because without some sort of fictional history claiming that two words coincidentally achieved the same form with the same meaning, I'd interpret this (-mo' and -mo') as a suffix with two uses.
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Socialist Alternative <http://www.socialistalternative.org/>
> Klingon Language Institute <http://www.kli.org/>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 8:40 AM, lojmIttI'wI'nuv <lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com <mailto:lojmitti7wi7nuv at gmail.com>> wrote:
> {-mo’} applied to a noun phrase can’t change to behave like a verb suffix any more than {-Daq} or {-‘e’} or {-vaD}. The noun and verb suffixes {-mo’} and {-mo’} sound alike and have a similar sense of meaning, but they are not the same suffix, any more than “wear” and “ware” are the same words in English. Since we write Klingon phonetically, we can’t have different spellings of homonyms to differentiate them.
> 
> pItlh
> lojmIt tI'wI'nuv
> 
> 
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