It seems to me that yopwaH yItuQ would mean basically the same... Doesn't wear something and put on something mean the same in English? To put on seems more informal, though. I mean... I would expect tuQmoH to be used to wear someone else as in cause to wear... So you could, I don't know cause a baby to wear something, guh' yItuQmoH vay'
This goes back to an issue in The Klingon Dictionary. It defines tuQmoH as put on (clothes) and tuQHa'moH as undress. Because these English phrases can be used like I put on clothes and I undress, a lot of people, including the course creators, believe that these are special phrases whose grammar cannot be explained by the normal rules.
I think they're wrong. I think put on (clothes) means cause (someone) to wear clothes and undress means undress (someone).
In that case, your suggestion is correct and the course is incorrect: yopwaH yItuQ wear pants!
To say Dress the baby! say ghu yItuQmoH! To say I dress myself, say jItuQ'eghmoH. And so on.
This particular error is deeply entrenched in the Klingon-speaking community. Good luck convincing them about it.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. Maybe if the verb were defined as "be dressed" there would be less ambiguity.
So tuQmoH would clearly mean cause to get dressed, so either dress or put on, depending on the subject.
On the other hand, language constructs do not always evolve rationally, and if a majority of speakers use them, in time the rule change. At least, for natural languages.
Thanks for posing this. I learned a lot reading this discussion.
I have a minor point. For your sentence guh' [sic] yItuQmoH vay', vay' does not belong in the subject position because the subject here is "you". Maybe it should be something like ghuvaD vay' yItuqmoH although I think vay' is unnecessary here and you could just say ghu yItuQmoH as DavidT suggested above.
I think I would only use vay' if I were exasperated because somebody else was being stupid or argumentative and saying something like, "What do you expect me to put on the baby!" And then I might respond with, "I don't know. Dress it in SOMETHING!" Besides for emphasis it seems redundant to say dress it in something as there is no other option. It would be difficult to dress it in nothing or in everything (except if you like laid out a bunch of stuff on the bed and wanted somebody to understand that you wish them to put everything there on the baby).
The only reason that you are tempted to use "something" is because you are thinking of the English "put on" which requires a direct object. But I think the Klingon tuQmoH is more like the word dress that does not require that. So "put something on the baby" versus "dress the baby".
This makes me wonder however about whether tuQ requires a direct object or not and if it does, then is it ok if tuQmoH doesn't have one? For example, is it possible to say just I wear, jItuQ or does it have to be I wear it vItuQ?
I missed this eight months ago.
There is certainly no problem saying jItuQ without specifying an object. In Klingon, you can use the no-object prefix to indicate that any object the verb might have is vague or general. jItuQ can be interpreted as I wear things in general. Wearing things is a practice of mine. Outside of a conversation in a nudist colony, I don't see how this word would be useful, but it's still a valid word.