tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 17 11:00:31 1996
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Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben
- From: Irene Gates <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben
- Date: 17 Dec 96 13:57:08 EST
*** From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected]> ***
> From: Steven Boozer, INTERNET:[email protected]
> RE: Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben
>
> >> "I am 40 years old" would be expressed as: loSmaH ben jIboghpu'
>
> 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.
Wait, is the unmarked form necessarily imperfective? I thought it was
neutral (and could be interpreted as having any aspectual quality). Now
{40 ben jIboghtaH} is imperfective, and I understand it as meaning
`(on a fine morning) 40 years ago I was being born (and suddenly ...)'.
> Depending on how many hours she was in labor, your mother might want
> to remind you gently: loSmaH ben bIboghta'.
That sounds as if the baby was the one who was consciously struggling
towards the outcome. Which is not exactly incorrect, but to my ears
it doesn't emphasise the mother's being in labour (and her effort).
Then again, what do we know about Klingon childbirth? Is it as slow
and painful as it tends to be for human women, and if it is, do
Klingon females enjoy it? (The Aztecs, who were as close as one can
get on this planet to a nation with their minds constantly set
on warfare, regarded childbirth as a kind of battle.)
> 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 [...].
More precisely, it is the form for the past tense (there is only one)
of a perfective verb.
> To use the imperfective past here would be nonsense.
Make that to use an imperfective verb. But note that in Klingon
you don't have to supply the verb with any aspect marker. This is
not the case in Russian, where the verb always belongs to one of
the two aspects.
--
"mIw'e' lo'lu'ta'bogh batlh tlhIHvaD vIlIH [...]
poH vIghajchugh neH jIH, yab boghajchugh neH tlhIH"
(Lewis Carroll, "_Snark_ wamlu'")
Ivan A Derzhanski <[email protected], [email protected]>
Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences
Home: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria