tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 24 19:22:47 1996
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Re: Learning tlhingan Hol and Dr. Suess
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Learning tlhingan Hol and Dr. Suess
- Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 22:23:03 -0400 ()
- Priority: NORMAL
On Thu, 24 Oct 1996 17:00:41 -0700 Adrian K <[email protected]> wrote:
> >So "jImejpu'" means "I have left" or "I had left" or "I will
> >have left," depending on the context; but "I left" is more likely implied
> >by the context and is simply "jImej."
>
> You're confusing me. Isn't "jimej" -> "I leave"?
THIS is a job for ... ASPECTMAN! Faster than a speeding context! Able to
leap large tenses with a single bound!
Okay, lets start from the top.
Klingon does not have tense. As weird as this sounds, this is also true
of quite a few real live human languages. You have to figure out tense
by context. Okrand gives us examples of this on the audio tapes. I may
misquote this but basically, he says:
wa'Hu' jIghung. Yesterday, I was hungry.
DaHjaj jI'oj. Today, I am thirsty.
wa'leS jIDoy'. Tomorrow, I will be tired.
Notice that the only thing separating what we would consider to be past,
present and future is the time setting of wa'Hu', DaHjaj and wa'leS.
So, what is all this stuff about perfective with {-pu'}? That is ASPECT,
not TENSE. Tense gives you the time setting of the action of the
sentence, while aspect tells you the degree of completion at the time
setting given by tense.
In English, this time setting (tense) is a grammatical part of the
language. In Klingon, tense only exists as context. There is no
grammatical way to represent tense.
So, I could go back to the earlier examples:
wa'Hu' jIghungpu'. Yesterday, I had been hungry.
DaHjaj jI'ojpu'. Today, I have been thirsty.
Wa'leS jIDoy'pu'. Tomorrow, I will have been tired.
See the difference between these examples and the earlier ones? The
first example in both groups is past tense (set by context), but in the
first example, the action of being hungry happened yesterday. In the
second group, the action of being hungry was already complete yesterday.
This is the difference between, "I was hungry" and "I had been
hungry". It is the difference between "simple past tense" and
"past perfect tense".
The same kind of difference exists between "I am thirsty" and "I have
been thirsty". Both are "present tense" (in Klingon, set by context),
but one describes the thirst as happening now, while the other says the
action is complete. Present vs. present perfect.
I'll leave the future vs. future perfect for you to figure out.
ANALOGY ALERT!
Okay, imagine a foot bridge. The action of the verb is the bridge. You
represent the instant which is the time setting (tense) of the sentence.
If you make your first step onto the bridge, you want to use {-choH},
which is not really an aspect marker, but it is close to one. There is
no fog.
If you merely wish to remark that you are on the bridge, you don't use
any aspect marker. You are on the bridge. Maybe you can see both ends of
the bridge, or maybe you can't. It doesn't matter.
You use {-taH} when you are on the footbridge in the middle of a fog.
You can't see where the bridge begins or where it ends. You are on the
bridge for as far as you can see (or more accurately, for as far as you
are paying attention).
When you can see the end of the bridge appearing from the mist and you
point at the goal, seeking to gain the attention of the observer, to
focus his attention on achieving that foreseeable moment when you are
getting off the bridge, you want {-lI'}.
When you step off the bridge, you use {-pu'}. When you step off the
bridge and you turn around and point proudly to the observer that you
have accomplished crossing the bridge, you use {-ta'}.
So, to review, in English, your position on the bridge is expressed by
tense. In Klingon, it is expressed by context. Meanwhile, the bridge
itself is the action of the verb, and the overall scene (the bridge, the
fog, the focus of attention) is the aspect. Aspect is expressed as
perfective (-pu'}, accomplishment {ta'}, continuous {-taH}, progressive
{-lI'}. {-choH} doesn't count because it can be combined with any of the
others.
I started to give examples, but then I need to leave SOMETHING
for you to figure out, right?
> -Adrian K (aka HoS'a'wI')
>
> \|||||/
> ( o o )
> |--------oOOo--( )--oOOo----------| "tlhutlhmeH HIq ngeb qaq
> | http://www.jwp.bc.ca/peregrine | law' bIQ qaq puS."
> |[email protected]________| -Marc Okrand
>
charghwI'