tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 02 07:15:22 1996

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Re: pu'-pu' Platter (was Re: KLBC: jIqeqnISmo'...!)

According to David Wood:
> 
> ghItlh ghunchu'wI':
> 
> =>[checking account]wIj vIcherpu'DI' HuchwIj lulanHa'pu'.
> =>
> =>Note that the {pu'}s are still there. The way you interpreted the sentence 
> =>before was correct; they DID misplace the money as soon as I opened the 
> =account.
> 
> =Now I *am* convinced you are misusing {-pu'}.  "When I had established
> =my checking account, they had misplaced my money."...
> =Removing the other {-pu'} gives
> ="As soon as I established my checking account, they misplaced my money."
> =I really think this has the correct meaning.
... 
> Standard condition would be neither perfective, in which case the logical way to
> translate the sentence would be simple past, or perhaps present. And it works 
> that way, too: "As soon as I establish the account, they misplace the money." 
> However, it has to agree with the tense of the sentences before it, right? And 
> that used a perfective.

I tend to translate {-DI'} as "when", which means pretty much
the same thing as "as soon as", though it makes for more
natural sounding translations. Your three possible translations
then become:

"When I established my account, they misplaced my money." (My
suggested best choice for your meaning -- which involves NO use
of perfective. The setting up of the account and the losing of
your money happened simultaneously. The setting up of the
account is the time stamp for the losing of the money, which is
EXACTLY what you are trying to convey.)

"When I establish my account, they misplace my money."

"When I will establish my account, they will replace my money."

> The next case is first perfective, second not, as you're proposing it. "As soon 
> as I had established the account, they misplace the money." I suppose this works
> because the {DI'} ties the time of the second phrase to that of the first. So 
> because the first is perfective, the second is aspected perfective too. Is this 
> assessment right?

"When I had established my account, they misplaced my money."

"When I have established my account, they misplace my money."

"When I will have established my account, they will misplace my
money."

I don't really like any of these much.

> If both phrases are perfective, then when the first half is completed, the 
> second half is already finished. And I say this is what happened: the meeting to
> open the account took a certain amount of time. And by the time that time had 
> elapsed, the money was already well on its way to the wrong account, not to be 
> found until late the following month.

"When I had established my account, they had misplaced my
money." (This is weirdly redundant and I really don't like it
much.  ghunchu'wI' doesn't like it very much. I have not heard
anyone by you like it at all. While I don't think it is
grammatically wrong, it doubly draws in a perfective where none
is needed. It's like replacing "When my butt itched, I
scratched it," with "when my butt had itched, I had scratched
it," or replacing "The bell rang at 5:00" with "When the bell
had rung, it had been 5:00." The two actions happened
simultaneously. The fact that completion of the two acts
happened simultaneously is irrelavent and sounds very awkward.)

"When I have established my account, they have misplaced my
money."

"When I will have established my account, they will have
misplaced my money."

> And that's why I said the double perfective was appropriate -- moreso than the 
> perfective and a simple past. If there's some sort of spurious argument here, 
> then please point it out to me, 'cos it's a semantic point finer than any I'm 
> considering.

Does this point it out?

> -- David Wood, Freelance Computer Consultant

charghwI'
-- 

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