[86607] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The meaning of -moH
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Thu Oct 1 07:32:54 2009
In-Reply-To: <4AC3F650.7060304@trimboli.name>
From: "ghunchu'wI'" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 07:31:40 -0400
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:22 PM, David Trimboli wrote:
> However, this means we have an odd situation: verbs like {tuH} "be
> ashamed" should not be able to take objects, yet verbs like {tuHmoH}
> "shame" certainly are able to do so. Why do verbs of quality seem to
> change the semantic role of the object while verbs of action do
> not? Or
> do verbs of action change the semantic role of the object *sometimes*?
> When?
I propose that they *never* change the semantic role of the object.
Under this view, {tuHmoH} doesn't actually have an object. It's just
a version of the "prefix trick" at work, making it *look* like the
beneficiary is the grammatical object.
Explicit examples of the prefix trick all have a grammatical mismatch
between the prefix and the apparent object. Many of our examples of
{-moH} on a verb expressing a state or quality appear not to, though
this might be difficult to pin down due to the lack of morphological
distinction between the various meanings of the null prefix. :-)
> (For instance, under this hypothesis, what is the correct object
> of {ghojmoH}?)
With my proposal, the correct object is the thing being learned. If
that thing is not mentioned, the student as beneficiary might be able
to appear to be the object.
-- ghunchu'wI'
