tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 17 22:21:15 1996
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Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben
- From: Qov <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Dr Okrand Speaks -- ben
- Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 22:20:00 -0800
(Qov's mailer is terrible with attributions ...)
At 11:50 16/12/96 -0800, Voragh wrote:
}In response to what ghunchu'wI' wrote:
}>Quoting Mark Okrand as quoted by Ken Traft:
}>> "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.
I would have preferred <loSmaH ben jIbogh>, too, but I'm very willing to
accept this as a Klingon idiom, or the way that Klingons think about time in
the past.
}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.
jIQoch. <loSmaH ben> time stamps the action as occuring then. Even <loSmaH
ben jIboghlI'> would mean to me "forty years ago I was being born." "I have
been being born over the last forty years" in Klingon would require
<qaStaHvIS loSmaH DIS>.
}For comparison, in Russian (another aspectual language) one says: Ya
}rodilsya/rodilas' sorok let tomu nazad "I was born 40 years ago".
}
}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
Or native speakers of other languages with aspect. I noticed a Bulgarian
.sig today.
} Qov? Kak ty dumaesh'?
Voragh, ya dumayu 4to, DaH *russkii* DujwIj vIvoqqangbe'. Aspects in Russian
sometimes include meanings that Klingon expresses with -taH/-lI'. I'm
thinking of "vchera ya poshla b shkoly" <wa'Hu' DuSaQDaq jIyIt/jIyItpu'> vs.
"vchera ya shla" <waHu' jIyIttaH> vIqel. My use of Russian perfective is
far from perfect, and MO continually uses -pu' where I would uses a bare
verb, vaj ghu'vamvaD lI'be' vuDwIj.
jIHagh. bIng mu'tlheghmey DalaDchugh vaj mIw'e' lo'law'bogh yabwIj
DayajchoH. Dayajchu'chugh HIja' -- vIyajchu'be' jIH. :-)
---
Qov [email protected] tlhIngan Hol ghojwI'