tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 24 12:30:59 1993

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Re: What *did* we ask Okrand?

> * future tense ("and then", "afterwards") --- there is no way to express
> any futurity at the moment.

     I suspect this feature may be related to the joke in CK: "A Klingon MAY
be INACCURATE, but he is NEVER approximate!" 

     During my one meeting with Okrand, he emphasized that -pu' and -ta' were
not references to tense. They were references to states of completion within
the time setting of the context. That's not quite the same thing as tense.
That's why there is no future tense. There aren't ANY tenses.

     Actions are either complete (-pu'), complete on purpose (-ta'), in
progress (incomplete) (-lI'), or there is no reference to their state of
completion. This is not the same thing as a TIME reference, which always
needs to be expressed as a context setting time stamp (like days from now) or
one of a limited set of adverbs (like "soon") or tied to the time setting of
another verb (like -DI').

     He did this on purpose, just to be weird, kinda like O-V-S. I seriously
doubt he wants to change it. He seemed downright proud of himself for coming
up with the idea. Of course, it is his perogative to change his mind, but
this one was definitely not an accidental omission.

--   charghwI'

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