[297] in tlhIngan-Hol
Causatives
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon May 4 10:22:14 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: Mark E. Shoulson <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Mon, 4 May 92 09:47:39 -0400
In-Reply-To: Ken_Beesley.PARC@xerox.com's message of Fri, 1 May 1992 11:08:00 P
Yeah, I noticed the infelicity in the ordering of suffixes myself (the way
"-'egh" follows "-moH", which causes the odd-sounding things like
"yItay'eghmoH"). I recall I was working out a verb that had a suffix of
all classes to keep the order straight (like the noun example
"QaghHommeyHeylIjmo'"), and came up, I think, with
"bIQong'eghqangchoHmoHlaHpu'neSchugh", which would mean something like "If
you, sir, were able to make yourself willing to go to sleep" (hmmmm, maybe
not. How does the "-choH" work in? Is it "make youself willing to (start
to) sleep" or "make yourself start to be willing to sleep" or even "start
to make yourself willing to sleep"?).
In any case, it's true that it seems that we'd want flexibility to consider
"-moH" as more of a rover, so as to make new verbs with it and still have
stuff in the same order. Nonetheless, Okrand has given us pretty close to
zero cause to believe that's the case. The only possible thing he has is
the way he lists "-moH"-made verbs separately in the dictionary, and I
don't think that suffices. It may be that he'll decide to allow the kind
of freedom you talk about, Ken, if/when he's asked, but at the moment I
can't see any evidence for it.
You're right; we need native speakers.
~mark
