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

[De'vID]

De'vID:
>> {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.

SuStel:
> 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.

Okrand writes for a general audience, and here I wish he would've been
more precise what he meant by "verb". Did he mean "bare verb", or
"verb including suffixes"? I disagree that {tamchoH} is a verb
describing a state of being. To me, it's a verb describing a *change*
in state of being. When a suffix is added to a verb, the meaning
changes.

{tammoH}, for example, does not describe a state of being any more,
and clearly the rule about adding {-'egh} and {-moH} does not apply to
{tammoH}. On the other hand, the rovers {-qu'} and {-be'}, and
suffixes like {-neS}, don't change the fact that the verb describes a
state of being. I admit that it's less clear with {-choH}, {-taH}, and
some of the other suffixes, though. Actually, I can't imagine a usage
where {-pu'} or {-lu'} with an imperative and a bare verb describing a
state of being makes sense, though maybe someone else can come up with
one.

SuStel:
> 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.

{yItaD'eghmoH} came about because the producers of the Klingon CD
wrote a line where Gowron calls for everyone to "freeze". Okrand
probably didn't like the fact that the idiom "freeze" (meaning to
remain motionless) is identical in English and Klingon, and
retroactively made it so that the idiomatic expression uses just {taD}
whereas commanding someone to literally freeze oneself requires
{-'eghmoH}.

SuStel:
> 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.

It's not so much that I think it's an exception to the rule, as that
it's not clear to me which suffixes sufficiently change the meaning of
a verb away from describing a state of being such that the rule no
longer applies. Some clearly do, and some clearly don't, but {-choH}
falls somewhere in the middle. Caution is indeed warranted.

-- 
De'vID