tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 10 18:30:51 2012
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[Tlhingan-hol] Type 7 verb suffixes (was Re: nuq bop bom: 'ay' wa'vatlh wejmaH vagh: <potlh QonoS>)
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 5:16 PM, David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
> TKD says that a lack of type 7 suffix means that the action is not one of
> the things that type 7 suffixes describe. It doesn't mean that you just
> didn't mention something—if the suffix is true, it's *required*.
You're apparently reading more than is there. TKD doesn't say anything
about the suffix being mandatory. What it actually says is this:
"The absence of a Type 7 suffix usually means that the action is not
completed and is not continuous (that is, it is not one of the things
indicated by the Type 7 suffixes)." [Section 4.2.7. Type 7: Aspect,
page 40]
The word used in this sentence is "usually", not "always". There are
plenty of examples showing that an aspect suffix can be absent when
referring to a completed action. One is earlier on page 40: {baHchu'}
"he/she fired (the torpedo) perfectly".
> Klingon also has a *perfective* aspect. Perfective is where you view an
> action as a completed whole. {jIQongpu'} "I slept: I went to sleep, slept
> for a while, then woke up."
Here's what TKD says about {-pu'} "perfective":
"This suffix indicates that an action is completed." [page 41]
It does not say the suffix refers to the entire action from start to
finish. I don't see any reason to infer that it does.
> What Klingon does NOT have is a built-in *perfect* tense/aspect. Perfect
> "tense" indicates that something is currently in a state or condition that
> resulted from an action in the past. "I have eaten" means that I'm full now
> because I ate earlier. This is different from "I ate," which is perfective
> and means "I finished off a meal" (you wouldn't say "I ate" if you just took
> one bite of an apple).
I'm not following this at all. To me, "I have eaten" doesn't say
anything about being full, nor does it imply that the eating is being
considered as a complete whole. All it means to me is that I finished
eating before saying it. When I say "I ate", I am not intending to
imply that I finished anything in particular. And I most certainly
WOULD say "I ate one bite of an apple."
> The grammarians have been wrong for a long time.
I could cite more examples from TKD that I interpret as indicating
that the grammarians have it right and you have it wrong, but I doubt
that would resolve anything, since I interpret your own examples
exactly backwards from the way you say you mean them. It's clear that
your understanding differs from mine, and I'm willing to leave it at
that.
-- ghunchu'wI'
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