tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 16 11:37:18 1996

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Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben

>> "I am 40 years old" would be expressed as:
>> loSmaH ben jIboghpu'
>
>{-pu'}?!  I'd like to know why the perfective is appropriate here. 
>There are a couple of weaselish arguments I could come up with, but 
>this seems to me like a misapplication of perfective.
>
>-- ghunchu'wI'

Seems perfectly logical to me.  How many times can you be born?  This one
event is completed.  The alternative is to leave it in the unmarked
imperfect which to my ears implies your birth took 40 years to accomplish.
Ouch!  Depending on how many hours she was in labor, your mother might want
to remind you gently:  loSmaH ben bIboghta'.  (I wonder, do Klingon mothers
use guilt to motivate their children too?  yIn DayajmeH 'oy' yISIQ!)

For comparison, in Russian (another aspectual language) one says: Ya
rodilsya/rodilas' sorok let tomu nazad "I was born 40 years ago".  Note that
"rodilsya/rodilas'" has to be the perfective past tense (the two forms
reflect the sex of the speaker).  To use the imperfective past here would be
nonsense.  Of course if you really just want to say how old you are in
Russian, you say: Mne sorok let or *jIHvaD loSmaH DIS.  Okrand chose to not
to do it this way.

As an aside, it would be interesting to compare the use of aspect in Klingon
to Russian.  I'm sure there are differences--Russian uses both tense and
aspect, while Klingon only has aspect--but this doesn't feel like one of
them.  Are there any other Russian speakers or translators on the list (not
merely those who've studied it a couple of years)?  Glen Proechel returns
this month from Khabarovsk and I'm sure he would have some ideas (he always
does!). Qov? Kak ty dumaesh'?  


Voragh

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