tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 16 06:41:07 1998
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Fwd: Re: -pu'
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Fwd: Re: -pu'
- Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:41:05 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
SuStel answers charghwI':
>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).
You have a point.
>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.
Or "While three days will happen, I will not drink." I now
realize that the only way out of this is to say:
loSHu' jItlutlhbe'choHtaH. wa'Hu', jI'ojqu'.
You ultimately recognized this when you said:
>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.
Pardon the snipping, but the PalmPilot's brain is only so big....
>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.
Well, if we're going to get THAT picky, finding water does not
immediately guench thirst. One assumes that I will have found it
if I drink it.
> 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.
Wow. I got something right.
>Unrelated to the question, I'd like to suggest an alteration.
qatlh mumerbe' chupchoHghachvam?
>bIQmo' jISeyqu' 'ej jISop 'e' vIlIj.
>What you had was "because I forgot I did not eat." This was a little vague.
Not as vague as your "I forgot that I ate." Perhaps {jISopnIS
'e' vIlIj,} would please us both.
>>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
>tunsure 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.
Good point.
>SuStel
>Stardate 98534.9
Now I need a Stardate calculator for my PalmPilot...
charghwI'