[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: "shut up or I'll hit you"

[SuStel]

On 2/25/2016 9:30 AM, De'vID wrote:
> Qov:
>>> I thought of it, but the -choH seemed to mitigate the issue for me.  I
>>> suppose it's because yItamchoH is canonical.
>>>
>>> Do you yourself think that yItamchoH should now be considered an error? I
>>> think yItamchoH and yItam'eghmoH both say to do something, while *{yItam}
>>> says to be something, and perhaps that doesn't sound like a command.
>
> SuStel:
>> I think {yItamchoH} should be considered a possible exception to the rule,
>> which we know is occasionally broken. But I'm not prepared to take a stand
>> on it one way or another.
>
> {yItamchoH} is in TKD and also in the Klingon CD (which makes it
> doubly canonical):
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwSJai1cps
>
> KGT says: "Generally, when a verb describing a state of being (for
> example, {tuj} "be hot") is used in the imperative form, the suffixes
> {-'egh} (reflexive suffix) and {-moH} ("cause") are used as well".
>
> I don't think these are contradictory. It's wrong to command someone
> to *be* in a state. But {yItamchoH} is a command to *change* from a
> prior state to a new one.

But KGT doesn't say it applies when you command someone to be in a 
state; it just says it applies when a verb describing a state of benig 
is used in the imperative form. You're jumping to a conclusion: 
{yItamchoH} certainly is a verb describing a state of being used in the 
imperative form. Maybe your conclusion in fact describes what's going 
on, but we have no evidence of it.

I personally think {yItamchoH} is simply one of those cases where Okrand 
made up a rule AFTER a contradictory example already existed. He may 
even have noticed this—though he surely does not keep track of his own 
canon as fanatically as we do—and thought along your lines, that the 
rule should apply only to commands without other aspectual information.

The point is, we shouldn't take for granted that {yItamchoH} represents 
a general exception to the {-'eghmoH} rule. Maybe it does, maybe it 
doesn't. We don't have enough evidence.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name