tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 01 12:02:10 1996
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Re: -taH (was: Re: KLBC)
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>Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 20:14:42 -0700
>From: [email protected] (HoD trI'Qal)
>At 07:10 PM 9/10/96 -0700, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>>
>>>Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 00:50:45 -0700
>>>From: [email protected] (HoD trI'Qal)
>>
>>>>choppu' qettaHbogh Saj.
>>>>The pet which is running bit him.
>>
>>>I really don't want to get into a detailed discussion of -taH right now, but
>>>I would like to point out that using -taH in there implies that the pet is
>>>running now, and was also running when it bit the officer--it implies a
>>>"continuous" running, ceaseless running.
>>
>>Well, not so much "ceaseless" but that its stopping isn't happening or
>>relevant to this discussion. I'm not sure that the -taH implies that the
>>pet was running when it bit the person AND that it's running now. It is
>I don't think I ever said it was "tense". I beleive I said that -taH
>implied that it was an on-goin process--that likely the creature was running
>then, and is running now.
You didn't say it was tense. But your interpretation is a tense-based
one. The -taH suffix means that the action is on-going, yes. That is, at
the point in time under discussion, the action is still going on and we're
not really concerned about its stopping. It's in the process of happening
*at whatever point in time we're talking about*. Saying "So it is now"
brings a distinguished point of time into things, and Klingon doesn't have
that. Saying that -taH somehow indicates that the action must be happening
(as well) NOW gives -taH a sense of "present tense" (or present perfect,
present imperfect, whatever). The whole point of not having tense is that
no point of time is special or distinguished. The aspect markers do not
have any point in time baked into them; they only indicate relationships
regarding the action at whatever point in time is under discussion
already. As soon as you say that when you use suffix X you're referring to
the present (or the future, or the past, or 7pm on a Sunday) you're talking
about tense, because that's what tense *is*. It's a grammatical indication
of time. Aspect is not an indication of time; it's an indication of state
of completeness of the action (at whatever time is implied by other
methods). You can't say that a verb-form refers to a particular time and
not be talking about tense.
>I did not get this out of the blue. In the KD, the first setnence under
>-taH (page 42) is "This suffix indicates that an action is on-going." All
>of the examples imply this as well... that this action is going on now, and
>no foreseeable end is in sight. I interpreted -taH on the "running dog"
>thing to mean that the dog bit the man on the fly, and more or less didn't stop.
It indicates that an action is ongoing... at the time in question. That
time may be today, tomorrow, or last week. I can say "wa'Hu' jIlengtaH,
'ach DaHjaj jIleStaH": Yesterday I *WAS TRAVELLING* (i.e. I was engaged in
the process of travelling at some point yesterday, my travelling was
ongoing. I wasn't necessarily approaching a goal; -lI' isn't what I need.
My travelling was going on), but today I *AM RESTING* (that's the action
that's taking place at the point in time today in question--which may not
be now! Though I could say DaH instead of DaHjaj). I can even say
"cha'leS jISuvtaH" I'll be fighting (probably most of the day) the day
after tomorrow. I'm not (necessarily) doing it now; it can't possibly be
ongoing to now. But at the time under consideration, it's happening.
>If I wanted to point to a group of dogs, and say "the one which is running
>is the one that bit the man", I would DEFINITELY use -lI'. It is running
>now. It may stop in a moment.
- -lI' indicates progress towards a known or definite or expected stopping
point. Obviously -taH doesn't mean that whatever it is goes on forever, or
we'd never use it! Just about everything stops at some point. I don't
know and I don't care if or when the dog is going to stop; -taH is
sensible here. Now, if it's running toward something and I presume that's
its goal and it will stop when it gets there, I might say qetlI', to
emphasize that it's running at the time under discussion (*in this case*
now), but I *expect* it to stop at some reasonably well-defined and
understood time.
>The KD also states, in the last paragraph, referring to the the example of
><yIjun> versus <yIjuntaH> that:
> "In the first case, the maneuver is to be executed once only. In
>the second, a series of evasive maneuvers is to be executed--the action is
>to be continuous."
Right. Note that the continuousness is in the future in this case. It has
nothing to do with "now", only the type of action. One is a simple action,
another is said to have structure in time, to take up temporal space.
Simple actions *do* take time, of course, but we don't draw attention to
it. Continuous ones take up time and we refer to that feature explicitly.
>I really think that this supports my claim that using -taH implies that the
>action doesn't/did not stop.
Only that the action was ongoing at the time under consideration. That
time might have been seven years ago, or next week.
>If you look at the original sentence, it was "The pet which was running bit
>him." The translator used -pu' on "to bite" and -taH on "to run" which, as
>I stated, implies to ME, after reading the description in the KD of -taH,
>that the pet is ALWAYS running: it was running then (at the time of the
>bite, since we have a perfective in there) and it is running now, and it
>probably has not stopped in the meanwhile.
Not necessarily. The -pu' establishes that the time of the biting is
before the time under consideration (WHICH MAY NOT BE "NOW" EITHER!), and
at the time under discussion, the running was going on. Note that nowhere
does "now" enter into the figuring. This all may have happened years ago.
There was some point in time, which is the point I'm considering, at which
the biting was over and done with, and the running was going on. For
example, I might say:
bI'elDI', ghaH choppu' qettaHbogh targh.
When you entered (which was at 7:03 pm last Thursday), the running dog
(i.e. the one that was engaged in running at 7:03 pm last Thursday) had
bitten him (i.e. had bitten him some time prior to 7:03, and probably
fairly recently before, given the tone of the sentence). The dog may or
may not have been running when it bit him, and may or may not be running
now (it may have been hit by a car by now). I never mentioned "now" in the
sentence, why assume it is implied? -taH has no tense.
>As for your analogy to the headline, I think that you are forgetting that
>the main difference between -taH and -lI' is that -lI' has the SAME meaning,
>but that the action does and will have an end-point. In the case of a point
>out a dog out of a group of dogs, it's very likely that the dog will stop
>running at some point (it's probably running for REASON, even if it *is*
>just to play, and when it reaches it's goal, it will stop, and turn around,
>or whatever), and the dog is certainly making headway towards this goal.
>In your headline exaple in the English, this doesn't even come into play:
>you are talking about tense; I am talking about continuity--whether or not
>something is going to end. I think that if said headline were used in
>Klingon, -lI' would be used, and not -taH, for this very reason
- -taH and -lI' both mean the action is ongoing, but -lI' says that the
action has a definite stopping point, that progress is being made toward
that stopping point, and what's more that the speaker *cares* that there's
a stopping point towards which progress is being made. Everything stops,
it would be silly to have -taH only for eternal things. You use -lI' when
you want to emphasize that there is progress being made towards an
endpoint. There nearly always is an endpoint, but you may not care to
point that out; it may not be relevant to your point. "jIlengtaH" might
mean I was travelling goallessly, just for the fun of walking, with no
destination in mind, or maybe in circles. But it doesn't mean I have to
keep walking forever! It also might be used if there WERE a destination,
but the destination and my progress towards it happened not to be relevant
to what I was saying. While -lI' would be used if I wanted to make it
clear that I was travelling toward some stopping point, and was getting
there.
~mark
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