[86688] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Ditransitive reflexives
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Terrence Donnelly)
Mon Oct 26 22:58:07 2009
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Terrence Donnelly <terrence.donnelly@sbcglobal.net>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
In-Reply-To: <1cb7130b0910261541r2948641aia90309c2bb35f23@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
--- On Mon, 10/26/09, Tracy Canfield <toastrix@gmail.com> wrote:
> My original post discusses *why* the
> prefix trick seems to be a problem in
> these cases. With examples. So I really am more
> than a little frustrated
> to have two people immediately tell me to use it, without
> addressing the
> original question.
You have found a lacuna in Klingon grammar. As far as I know, there is no easy way to express a reciprocal relationship between the subjects and beneficiaries of a verb phrase. You were posing the possibility of treating such a relationship as if it were a reciprocal subject-object relationship by using the "prefix trick" in some way, but the fact is that the verb in a (-chuq) phrase has no object, as shown by the use of the "no-object" verb prefixes. We say, for example, "We hit each other", using a "dummy" object to express the mutual action, but Klingons say {mamupchuq}, or something like "We reciprocally and mutually hit". As Doq noted, don't be influenced by the "each other" in the English, since the Klingon phrase is object-less, and thus the prefix trick is irrelevant.
-- ter'eS
