tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 05 10:58:43 1998
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Re: Translation of English Past and Present Perfect Tenses in Klingon
>Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 07:50:57 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Michael Rhodes" <[email protected]>
>
>
>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.
I'm not comepletely sure I understand the point here. -pu' is the
perfective aspect. Sometimes that translates neatly into English past
tense, and sometimes into English perfective aspects, since English is not
100% consistent about its meanings, and there are idioms and all to
consider. I think that's pretty well agreed. If that's what you mean,
then I agree. If you mean that -pu' is *always* or almost always a normal
past tense, then I disagree. More importantly, Marc Okrand disagrees, and
he should know.
>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).
I don't know Classical Arabic, but I've been studying Biblical Hebrew most
of my life. I'm not sure how much you can prove from this, aside from the
fact that even in Biblical times what was the perfective form was already
shifting to being used as a simple past tense. It certainly is almost
completely a normal past tense now. Its aspect nature can still be seen in
some situations, but it is mostly a simple past tense, and the imperfective
aspect has become a future tense. This was already happening in Biblical
times, and lest you think that such things don't shift around in a
language, remember that Mishnaic Hebrew hardly used the imperfective at
all, but instead used the word "future" plus the infinitive for future
tense ("I [am] future to go to the store"). Languages do this. (Consider
also Welsh, in which the present tense is almost exclusively future in
meaning in most registers, except for the verb "to be.") Biblical Hebrew,
actually, did have a different past tense, which it used almost always for
past tense, using the perfective occasionally... and many times with a
*perfective* meaning. Look at things like Lev. 13:32, where the meaning is
decidedly perfective ("the blemish is not in a state of having spread..."
so to speak. The first word in the verse is a red herring, since it's
"inverted" by the initial vav).
Again, I'm not sure what you're trying to state. Can -pu' be translated as
simple past tense? Sure, there's plenty of overlap. Is it ONLY past
tense? Okrand says no, and I'm studying HIS language, not yours.
>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 a living, true natural language, yes. But this is a constructed
language, and more significantly one with a single known creator who has
not thrown its development open to the user community (as happened with
Esperanto and to an extent very recently with Lojban). You're basically
telling someone, "You wrote this, and were inconsistent. *I* know what you
really meant, that THESE are right and THOSE are wrong. It doesn't matter
if you say otherwise, what do you know? You're only the author."
>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'.
Depends on the situation. Every sentence of a narrative with -pu' would
likely not work well, but if you wanted to tell me "Bob went to the store"
and wanted to make sure I knew it already happened, sure.
>> 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.
Erm, but Okrand's whole point in that section of the tape was the the verbs
do not change for tense. That's what he SAID.
>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.
Careful. Perfective aspect means that the action is completed... as of
when? "As of now" makes it a tense, not an aspect. "wa'leS vIHoHpu'" is
perfectly logical: the action of my having killed him will be completed as
of tomorrow (compare the Biblical verse mentioned above, which is also in
the future).
~mark