tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 14 20:45:03 1998
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Re: -pu'
- From: "David Trimboli" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: -pu'
- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 16:31:28 -0400
From: William H. Martin <[email protected]>
>
>On Mon, 13 Jul 1998 23:57:40 -0700 (PDT) Anthony Appleyard
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Please what <is> the correct use of the verb suffix {X-pu'}?
>
>wa'Hu' jI'oj. qaStaHvIS wej jaj jItlhutlhpu'be', 'ach bIQ
>vItu'ta'DI' jI'ojbe'choH. bIQmo' jISeyqu' 'ej jIlIjmo' jISopbe'.
>
>Yesterday, I was thirsty. [...]
>For three days, I had not drunk,
This part I disagree with. Your sentence was {qaStaHvIS wej jaj
jItlhutlhpu'be'}. This means that while the three days were occuring, my
not drinking was complete (or my drinking was not complete, depending on how
you interpret that).
I would have said
qaStaHvIS wej jaj jItlhutlhbe'taH.
I did not drink for three days.
While three days occur, I continuously do not drink.
>but when I found water, I became not thirsty. [The {-pu'}
>tells me that at the time stamp of {wa'Hu'} the action of not
>drinking for three days was complete. The three days were not
>ahead of me. They were behind me.
This is not at all clear to me from your sentence. As far as I could tell,
you were saying that you were thirsty yesterday (and that was that), then
over the next three days you were *going* to be not drinking.
A timestamp relative to another is always tricky. {qaStaHvIS wej jaj} is
NOT a timestamp. It is a duration.
If you want to say that the three days were behind you as of yesterday, you
should use something like
wa'Hu' jI'ojtaH. qaSpu' wej jaj 'ej qaStaHvIS jajvam jItlhutlhbe'taH.
Yesterday I was continuously thirsty. Three days had occurred and while
these days were occurring I did not drink.
You might make this shorter by not starting with {wa'Hu'} and then going
further back, but by starting further back in the first place.
>"When I found water"
>essentially becomes a new time stamp. Since it doesn't really
>give you a time you can see on a watch or calendar, it is likely
>related to the existing time stamp.
>Here, I'd naturally think it
>was a specific time during yesterday, and there's nothing here
>indicating otherwise.]
I think that's just the effect of your context, not inherent with timestamps
and subordinate clauses.
Existing time stamps are largely irrelevant with subordinate clause
timestamps. {jI'ojbe'choH} happens as soon as {bIQ vItu'ta'DI'} happens. It
doesn't matter what time contexts you've set up before.
Furthermore, there seems to be a strong desire on the part of many to
automatically combine completion aspects and {-DI'}. That is not necessary.
This sentence would work just fine with {bIQ vItu'DI' jI'ojbe'choH} "As soon
as I found water I stopped being thirsty." The finding happens, and that's
all that's important. It doesn't need to be a completed action, just just
needs to be performed.
> I became so excited about the water that
>I forgot to eat. [In English, all this is past tense because we
>relate time to the current time of the speaker. In Klingon, it
>is all what you might consider present tense because it happens
>at the time stamp of the story. In truth, Klingon has no tense.
>Aspect describes the verb's degree of completion at the time of
>the time stamp.
Quite right about aspect and tense.
Unrelated to the question, I'd like to suggest an alteration.
bIQmo' jISeyqu' 'ej jISop 'e' vIlIj.
What you had was "because I forgot I did not eat." This was a little vague.
>DaHjaj jIghung. Soj vIlegh. loQ Hop, 'ach vIghoSlI'. jIghunglI'.
>tugh jISop. bIQ vISuqta'meH wa'vatlh qelI'qam vIyItta'. Soj
>vISuqmeH wa'maH vagh qelI'qam vIyItnIS.
>
>Today, I am hungry. I see food. It is a little far away, but I
>am approaching it. I am hungry, but I can foresee being fed.
>Soon, I will eat. I had walked a hundred qelI'qammey to get
>water. [The time stamp is today, and today, I have finished
>walking the hundred qelI'qammey.]
Because this entire sentence has the completion aspect, I was entirely
unsure of the time it took place. In fact, my first reading was, "In order
that I will have obtained water, I will have walked one hundred kellikams."
I thought it was a future context (especially when you changed timestamps to
{tugh} in the previous sentence).
When a timestamp is no longer clear, it makes good sense to repeat or
reinforce it.
SuStel
Stardate 98534.9