tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Apr 14 15:54:23 1996

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Re: "Qo'noS ta'puq, Hamlet lotlut. lut 'ay' wa', lut 'ay'Hom

peSHIr writes:
>>>DaHjaj pawpu' paqna' chovnatlhwIj 'e' vIparHa'qu'.
>>
>>paqwIj je vIHevpu' 'ej jIQuch jIH je.  rap qechwIj 'ach puj pabvam.
>
>I was already afraid I might have written that much Klingon all in one go
>completely without errors... ;-)
>
>>By using the verb suffix {-pu'} on the verb {paw}, you imply that the
>>book had already arrived when "today" occured.
>
>No, I implied that the book arrived "today" (the day that I wrote that
>sentence, not today of course ;-)) and that the actual moment of arrival had
>already occurred earlier. What's wrong with using -pu' in that case...?

When I see "today" I think of *all* of today.  I infer from {DaHjaj pawpu'}
that its arrival is complete all day, not that it is complete *now*.  Your
explanation above says it "arrived today", not that it "has arrived today."
Using {-pu'} would be fine if you were referring to a time after it arrived.
It had arrived when you looked -- but it hadn't arrived when today began.
I don't get the two different ideas of "arrived today" and "arrived before
now" from what you wrote.

>>Its arrival appears to
>>be complete at the time the events in the rest of the sentence occur.
>
>Correct. I got the book somewhere during the morning and I wrote that
>message late afternoon, after doing all kinds of other things. So the book
>actually "had arrived today", as far as I can tell. Right?

Maybe.  I'm obviously being way too pedantic about this, but I think the
true nature of {-pu'} is important.  The book certainly had arrived when
you wrote the message, but you didn't say "now" or "when I checked".  If
you say "had arrived today", I still infer that the book was already here
today.

>Well, for once and for all:
>- The book here that morning.
>- I wrote the sentence late that afternoon.
>- I meant "My book has arrived [earlier] today". (=the act of arrival was
>completed by the time I wrote that).
>
>Is my use of -pu' then in error or not?

It's okay for the meaning I think you intended, "arrived earlier today",
but I don't think it works for the original phrase, "has arrived today",
or for what you just said, "has arrived [earlier] today".  This latest
explanation still fails to resolve the "perfective vs. past tense" mess.
"Has arrived [at some time]" tells me that at that time, it was already
there.  I see what you wrote, and I infer that the book showed up at some
time before "[earlier] today" -- either *much* earlier today, or yesterday,
or even some day before that.

All of the confusion goes away if you want {DaHjaj} to refer to some
unspecified time during the day, instead of the entire day.  However,
I will argue strongly that it shouldn't be used in that way.

-- ghunchu'wI'               batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj

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