tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 01 07:44:56 1998
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Re: Translation of English Past and Present Perfect Tenses in Klingon
- From: "Michael Rhodes" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Translation of English Past and Present Perfect Tenses in Klingon
- Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 08:43:41 -0700
Let me respond to the various remarks:
First of all to charghwI' (William Martin)
>At one of the qep'a' sessions in Philadelphia, Okrand explained
>about perfective vs. past tense, and then as the focus was
>moving on to something else, he muttered to one side, "Of course
>at one time, {-pu'} WAS past tense..." It was clear that when he
>was first developing the language, it was past tense and at some
>point, he decided to make it perfective instead.
> We don't know if it was one of those adjustments because of a
> change in a subtitle, or some other backfit, or if he later
> decided it would be more interesting that way. It doesn't
> matter. It means perfective, not past tense, even if some
> examples seem otherwise.
I agree completely that -pu' means perfective in the sense of completed, not
past tense. The real questions is how to translate to and from a language
that
uses aspect rather than tense into a language that uses tenses.
Let's start again with the statement from TKD that the "perfective" marker
-pu' "indicates that an action is completed. It is instructive to look at
languages
such as Biblical Hebrew and Classical Arabic that use aspect rather than
tense
in their verbal system. In both of these languages, the perfect, which is
used
for completed action, is nearly always translated as an English past tense.
When I say past tense, I don't mean only the simple past, but any of the
past
tenses which include simple past (I saw), present perfect (I have seen), and
past perfect (I had seen).
Thus with Klingon, as defined by Marc Okrand, the perfective aspect marker
-pu', as is shown by the overwhelming majority of his examples (50 to 1) is
rendered by either a simple past or present perfect in English. The single
exception, wa'Hu' jIghung, I deal with below.
> They may be leftovers from when it WAS used for past tense. It
> doesn't matter. The directions have consistently told us that it
> is perfective. In conversations with him, he has maintained this
> as well. There are errors in canon. We have to sift out that
> which is an error vs. that which teaches us.
If there are errors (or better inconsistancies) in canon, then looking at
the
examples and what they imply is the best way of resolving questions. That
is in fact how all language grammars are compiled. Rules are derived from
looking at the language.
> In this case, you can interpret that {-pu'} either means
> perfective, like he tells us, or that it means both perfective
> and past tense, which is NOT what he tells us and leaves us with
> a more chaotic language. This is not what we seek, so we ignore
> the examples that don't fit his descriptions.
Once again, I am not maintaining that -pu' means past tense, but rather that
the
aspect "completed" is most often best translated by an English past tense,
which
includes simple, past, present perfect, or past perfect tenses. And
conversely,
except in unusual cases, an English past tense is best translated into
Klingon using -pu'.
>> Thus –pu' and –ta' indicate a completed action, which according to the
>> examples can be translated by either an English past or an English
present
>> perfect tense.
> Nope. That doesn't fit the majority of canon from the audio
> tapes or from the other more recent books. In particular, he
> illustrates tense on Conversational Klingon with:
> wa'Hu' jIghung. Yesterday I was hungry.
> DaHjaj jI'oj. Today, I am thirsty.
> wa'leS jIDoy'. Tomorrow, I will be tired.
> The first example doesn't fit your general rule at all.
Majority of canon? You give one example of a verb without -pu' translated
as
a past tense against the 30 examples which I give of past tense and 20
examples
of present perfect. wa'Hu' jIghung could simply be explained as clipped
Klingon
lacking the -pu' marker because the temporal adverb makes it redundant.
> As numerous as these examples are, they are from the oldest
> canon and were written during a span of time during which Okrand
> changed from using {-pu'} as simple past to using it as
> perfective, regardless of tense. If you get the books "The
> Klingon Way" and "Klingon for the Galactic Traveler" and the
> audio tapes "Conversational Klingon" and "Power Klingon", you'll
> find canon a bit more consistent in this useage.
My examples include all the citations of past tense usage from both "The
Klingon
Way" and "Klingon for the Galactic Traveler."
>> There is thus not a single example of a verb without –pu' or –ta'
translated
>> as an English past tense, and there are at least 30 examples of –pu'
>> translated with the English simple past.
> Note the example given in Conversational Klingon above. You've
> researched well, but the simple truth is, Okrand has explained
> the grammar on this clearly in TKD, even if his examples don't
> consistently fit the descriptions, and in person he has clearly
> described how this works.
His examples do fit the description. He says that -pu' indicates that the
action is completed. What you are ignoring is that in the majority of
cases, English past tense implies that the action is completed.
>> And conversely, when translating an English past tense into Klingon,
>> the –pu' or –ta' aspect marker should be used. There is no justification
in
>> the published books on Klingon for translating an English past tense into
>> Klingon without using –pu' or –ta'.
> Except for Conversational Klingon and numerous personal
> testimonies, along with the grammatical explanation in TKD.
> These may be less numerous than your citations, but they are
> simply right and your conclusion is not.
One example from Conversational Klingon. What are these numerous
personal testimonies? Are they canon?
Neal Schermerhorn said:
> Well, MO has said that -pu'> was originally going to be a past tense
> marker. That is why all the examples exist. MO does state that <-pu'> "is
> often translated by the English present perfect". Again, just as <-lu'> is
> not passive voice, <-pu'> is not perfect tense, nor is it past tense. It
> indicates the action is completed. That it translates often as perfect
> cannot be ignored, but it *is* "action-completed". It is NOT tense, it is
an
> aspect. It gives a time stamp respective to the verb's context.
Again, no argument that -pu' is not tense. It IS an indicator of completed
action. But completed action nearly always best translates into English as
either a simple past or a present perfect tense.
> Every example you give with <-pu'> has the action of the verb occur before
> the time context of the sentence. That is correct usage of <-pu'>.
'Present
> perfect' is often a convenient translation, but <-pu'> isn't Klingon
present
> perfect.
Your definition of -pu' as defining an action of the verb that occurs before
the time context of the sentence is not the canonical definition, which is
simply that the action is completed.
> Another point to remember is that TKD is a primer, not a definitive,
> exhaustive presentation of Klingon grammar. Lack of explicit mention of
> 'past tense translation OK w/o <-pu'>' is not proof that it is forbidden.
Nor is it proof that it is allowed! Once again, both the rules as defined
in TKD
and the examples given by Marc Okrand in his various publications must be
used together to try and understand what is meant.
>> There is no justification in
>> the published books on Klingon for translating an English past tense into
>> Klingon without using –pu’ or –ta’.
>I see your point, but there is little logic in the assumption
>that -<pu'>-less verbs cannot be 'past' events. In fact you give an example
><yaS qIppu’ ‘e’ vIlegh> where the translation has <legh> become "saw" -
past
>tense. In fact, we can't put <-pu'> on <legh> here because it is a SAO
>construction. So there is a canonic usage.
As Marc Okrand explains in TKD, "The past tense of the translation (I saw .
. .)
comes from the verb in the first sentence, qIppu' he/she hit him/her (-pu'
perfective)."
(TKD, p. 66).
In summary. I have not and do not maintain that -pu' indicates past tense.
It indicates a perfective aspect, which implies that the verbal action is
completed. But completed action is best translated into English by either a
simple past or a present perfect.
Conversely, a simple past or a present perfect in English nearly always
implies that the action is completed and can best be translated by using
the -pu' aspect marker. These conclusions are supported overwhelmingly by
the examples in the works of Marc Okrand, which are the only canonical
evidence that is valid.
mIHayl