tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 17 21:26:23 1999
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Re: ma'veq: It's official
Who am I talking to, Nancy or Adam?
ja' "Nancy Snyder" <[email protected]>:
>>>ghay'cha'! pa'Daq vIjaHta'. QaQtaH 'oH 'ach moHaqmey mumISmoH 'e' vIQubpu'.
charghwI' has already responded quite well to your response to me, and
he pointed out the reason I had a problem with {moHaqmey mumISmoH}, but
I want to add two things.
>Secondly, I debate that I can't put <pu'> (a type 7 suffix) on <vIQub> to
>make it "I thought ot" as opposed to "I think it". That is just wrong!
HIvqa' veqlargh. A simple slip of the fingers turned a 7 into a 6 when
I typed the information about TKD's rule forbidding aspect suffixes on
a verb used in this way.
ja' "Adam Snyder" <[email protected]>:
>Here's a question: the example given in TKD works because both parts of the
>SAO phrase are in the same tense. What if they aren't? Then the
>implications aren't the same! If I had wanted to say, "I had thought that
>prefixes confused me"; I could see how adding the suffix to both sides
>could be redundant. But, If I had wanted to say, "I had thought that the
>prefixes confuse me"; I would have to leave the suffix off of both parts,
>making it the wrong tense enirely. So, while incorrect, I think that what I
>said is much more clear.
*** RED ALERT *** RED ALERT *** RED ALERT *** RED ALERT ***
Aspect is not the same thing as tense. Aspect involves the degree of
completion of an action, and is expressed using Type 7 verb suffixes
(and a rare syntactic {rIntaH}). Tense involves the time at which an
action occured in the past or occurs now or will occur in the future.
Tense is not indicated in Klingon grammar. The English verb forms
"confuse" and "confused" are both translated {mISmoH} in Klingon.
Are you trying to say something like "I used to think that the prefixes
confuse me"? That's the only way I can figure out how you'd want to put
an aspect suffix on {Qub}. But that's just considering the time at which
you thought it, not the aspect of the thinking. If you want to say that
you thought it sometime in the past, get specific and say precisely when
it was that you thought it. For example:
mumISmoH moHaqmey loSHu' 'e' vIQub.
Indeed, there are some things that would make perfect sense if one put
an aspect suffix on the second verb. But TKD makes it quite clear that
doing that is grammatically incorrect.
-- ghunchu'wI'