tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 24 15:36:40 1993

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Re: What *did* we ask Okrand?




RE: aspects rather than tenses
>> 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.<<

Indo-European languages tend to have well-developed tense-marking
mechanisms, and we often come to think that tense is a normal and
indispensible distinction in human languages.  However, Okrand is a
good linguist (Ph.D. from Berkeley) and knows that many languages
even here on earth have aspects, and no tenses, just like Klingon.
These include Arabic and at least some Polynesian languages.

Okrand certainly chose to use aspectual markers in Klingon, but
he didn't "come up with the idea."

Ken Beesley



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