tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Apr 12 20:20:48 2014
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Translating the past
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/12/2014 10:57 PM, SuStel wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:[email protected]" type="cite">On
4/12/2014 10:43 PM, Bellerophon, modeler wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Could one not say {wa'leS ghaH HoHlu'pu'},
indicating that by
<br>
tomorrow he will have gotten himself killed? This sentence uses
<br>
perfective but not in any past sense, Klingon cultural attitudes
toward
<br>
counting one's chickens notwithstanding. If grammar allows such
a
<br>
construction, it would divorce -pu' and -ta' from any connection
with
<br>
the past, except insofar as the past is more somewhat more
certain than
<br>
the future.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
It could certainly be used for that. -pu' and -ta' are not
connected to the PAST, they are connected to TENSE, in that their
perfect usage tells us that an event occurs prior to the time
context. In your sentence the time context is "tomorrow," and the
killing takes place prior to tomorrow. That's tense, even if it's
not PAST tense. It's future perfect tense.
<br>
<br>
I can't think of a way that this would make sense with a
perfective aspect, since as of today tomorrow's killing is not
completed as a whole unit.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
For some reason an ancient saying comes to mind: <b>requvmoH
maHeghrupbogh maH'e'.</b> <i>We who are about to die salute you.<br>
<br>
</i>~quljIb<br>
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