[Tlhingan-hol] Interactions between verb suffixes

[Will Martin]

In general, I suggest that if you wish to avoid sometimes remarkable ambiguity, it would be good to avoid combining {-moH} with any other suffixes that on a verb without {-moH} would apply to the subject, simply because it becomes a challenge to figure out whether the meaning of those suffixes should be applied to the person doing the action or the person causing the action to be done. It gets worse when the root verb has a direct object.

Nothing stops you from doing it. It doesn’t violate any rules. I’m only suggesting a best practice, if you have interest in clearly expressing meaning. Over time, I’ve come to realize that on this list, I’m nearly unique in having interest in expressing things clearly in Klingon, rather than the far more popular interest of stretching Klingon grammar to its extremes to see when it will finally collapse.

Hmm. Maybe I should stop resisting these tidal currents and join the fray. Thus inspired, I’ll start a weird thread here. We’ve wrestled with how to say “We discuss the Klingon language.” Why not say:

tlhIngan Hol wIja’chuqmoH.

I know, it looks like gibberish at first glance, but think about it. {-moH} makes {ja’} “ditransitive”, right? Maybe one of the objects can be the reflexive reflection of the subject, and the other can be the topic we discuss.

It’s less controversial to say:

tlhIngan Hol’e’ maja’chuq.

That’s certainly easier to understand, but considering all the weirdness and I think ugliness of what has now become perfectly acceptable use of {-moH}, why shouldn’t we say:

tlhIngan Hol wIja’chuqmoH.

Let the long series of earnest discussion begin.

Enjoy. I doubt I need to participate further in this thread to keep it going for a long, long time.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Jan 6, 2016, at 12:38 PM, Bellerophon, modeler <bellerophon.modeler at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Sleeping on it, I realized vImejmoHmeH jIHqang means "I am willing to be, in order to make them depart." jIDoy'law'pu'. pIj tlhIngan ghItlh jIlaDnISqa' je.
> I like Will's suggestion of vImejmoHmeH jIvangqang for disambiguating vImejqangmoH. It's direct.
> 
> Looking over the examples in TKD 6.3 and imagining -qang added to the pronoun, I see varying levels of weirdness, all avoidable.
> De'vID suggested {ratlh} to avoid -qang in a "to be" sentence. {taH} and {moj} could come in handy, too. Any verb gives more information than "to be."
> 
> And qunnoQ, I think {vebHa'} is accepted usage for "previous." Besides, I can't think what else it would mean. It's pretty neat that if you can't find a verb, negating its antonym sometimes works.
> ~mIp'av
> -- 
> My modeling blog:          http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.com/ <http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.com/>
> My other modeling blog:  http://bellerophon.blog.com/ <http://bellerophon.blog.com/>
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