tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 20 09:33:12 1993

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Re: Tenses and translation questions



     Leaving more complex items for better gramarians, this question strikes
close to something I worked hard on and feel I have resolved:

> 4:  I have no experience with languages that have no tense
> conjugations.  I felt I might have been relying too much on
> the "-pu'" and "-ta'" suffixes to show action in the past.
> Could someone enlighten me on which would be better for "I
> saw Yellowstone today."
>         DaHjaj "Yellowstone" vIlegh.
>         DaHjaj "Yellowstone" vIleghta'.

     The latter conveys that you intended to see Yellowstone and successfully
did so. The -ta' implies a goal accomplished. In this way, you suggest more
than tense. If you said DaHjaj naghSuD vIleghpu', you would suggest that at
the time context of the sentence (DaHjaj), the seeing of Yellowstone was
complete, though not necessarily expected or intended. The -pu' is the
perfective, which is not quite the same thing as a past tense. It places the
action in the past tense RELATIVE TO THE TIME SETTING OF THE SENTENCE. WaleS,
naghSuD vIleghpu' would be an odd sentence, but grammatically correct
(Something like, "Tomorrow, I will have seen Yellowstone, though it is not my
goal,"), while WaleS naghSuD vIleghta' would be perfectly normal, meaning
that you intend to have seen Yellowstone by tomorrow.

     Your first sentence is more confusing because it would be translated as
"I see Yellowstone today", which could mean that you have seen it, are seeing
it or will see it today, since you can't tell which moment in today you have
seen, are seeing or will be seeing it. Most Klingons would probably assume it
meant "Today I will see Yellowstone," since you have not indicated the
perfective and there is nothing in Klingon to distinguish present from
future. Since seeing Yellowstone is a thing that requires a certain duration,
the future is almost certainly involved if the perfective is not.

> Peter Garza

     I hope this helps.

--   charghwI'



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