tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Sep 28 15:43:39 1996

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Re: KLBC: Klingon poem

At 01:15 PM 9/5/96 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>At 10:03 PM 4/9/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>At 09:10 AM 8/30/96 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>>suvta'
>>
>>capItalS.  {{:)
>>
>>This really means, "they had (intentionally) fought"... ie, they had fought
>>before, in the past of this story.  I don't believe that this is what the
>>original poster had in mind.  {{:)
>
>Apart from the missing capital, nothing is wrong, the verb type 7 suffix
>{-ta'} means "accomplished, done", thusly {Suvta'} translated means "They
>accomplished fighting"


This is, from what I uderstand, precisely the difference between ASPECT and
TENSE.  Now, I could very well be misunderstanding -ta' and aspect, but from
what I have seen from the numerous posts on this very topic on the list, I
believe that what I stated to you was correct, and that you are
mis-interpreting the make-shift translation we are given as the "meaning" of
-ta' (and -pu') to mean TENSE.  I think I tried to point this out, but
didn't do a very good job of it, so I will try again...

I hope one of the linguists out there who really know the differecne bwtween
these two articles can confirm/deny the description I am about to give...

English has TENSE.  This means that when you talk about something that
already happened, you have to change your verb to SHOW that it already
happened.  We generally tell stories in the past tense, as almost all of
them have already occured.  For example:

        I WENT to the ship.
        I FOUND my enemy there.
        We FOUGHT.
        I WON.

All of the verbs in this story are in the past tense.

Klingon, on the other hand, has ASPECT.  This means that you use some sort
of time-marker to show when the event about which you are speaking took
place, and then tell the rest of the tale in the present tense.  Same example:

        wa'Hu' DujDaq jIleng.
        pa' jaghwI' vItu'
        maSuv.
        jIQapchu'.

Notice that after I showed the time-frame with <wa'Hu'> I didn't need to use
an aspect-marker!  That's (in my opinion) one of the really neat parts of
Klingon!  A really "literal" translation of this might be:

        Yesterday, I go to my ship.
        I find my enemy there.
        We fight.
        I win.

However, since English has tense, and Klingon does not, this is a very
incorrect translation.  The true translation for this is what I listed
before I gave the Klingon version.

>From the "tone" of your reply you may or may not believe me, just 'cause I
happen to be the BG, and give examples, that doesn't mean it is right...
after all, I have been proven wrong before.  Here, then, are some quotes
right out of the Klingon dictionary which support this:

"Klingon does not express tenses (past, present, future).  These ideas come
across from context or other words in the sentence (such as <wa'leS>
"tomorrow").  The languages does, however, indicate aspect:  whether an
action is completed or not yet completed, and whether an action is a single
event or a continuing one."  TKD, page 40, the first paragraph under 4.2.7.
All typos are my own, <>s used for boldface, and ""s ued for italics.

And, on the next page, under -ta':

"This suffix is similar to <-pu'>, but it is used when an activity was
deliberately undertaken, the implication being that someone set out to do
something and in fact did it."  Same note as above.

Since -ta' is similar to -pu', it would be inappropriate to look at -ta'
without looking at -pu':

"This suffix indicates that an action IS COMPLETED." Emphasis added.

In other words, you are telling your story.  These two people meet.  And all
of a sudden, you mention that they (intentionally) fought in the past OF THE
STORY.

This is a very difficult concept to understand; I didn't pick it up the
first time it was dropped in my lap, either.

Let's go back to my <lutHom> of meeting an enemy at a ship.  Let's suppose I
wanted to say:

        Yesterday I found my enemy at the ship.
        We HAD MET (for the first time) in a bar.

I forget the exact term for this (past participle?), but it is another
tense.  It means that something has occured in the past OF the past time of
which I am speaking.  In other words, three days before we met yesterday, we
had fought once before.  Well, however confusing this may be in English, it
is a LOT simpler (once you get the hang of aspect!) in Klingon:

        wa'Hu' DujDaq jagh vItu'.
        tachDaq maqIHchuqpu'.

Some might argue that the -pu' is a bit superflous, since it is obvious that
this was not our first meeting, but it is more correct than what you have
with <Suvta'>.  In your case, what you are saying is the next event in the
series which you are describing; here, I am jumping back in time, to the
past of the time which I am describing.

This is why -ta' was incorrect where you used it.  You used it to mean "the
next step in the sequence which I am describing, they deliberately engaged
in battle".  What -ta' really means (the way you used it) was "I am going to
jump into the past of the sequence which I am describing, and tell you that
they had, at one time, intentionally set out to fight each other AND THIS
ACTION IS NOW COMPLETED."

>From my own personal struggles to understand the proper use of -pu' and -ta'
(and believe you me, I had a struggle with them!  When you are used to
speaking with tenses, they are somewhat radical and different fromwhat you
already know/understand!), I found it was much easier to understand them if
I tought of them as "complettion".  -pu' means "this action is complete in
the time-frame which I am referencing".  -ta' means "this action is complete
in the time-frame which I am referencing, and not only that, but someone set
out to do it, and DID it."  In your time frame, you want to describe the
actual act of their beginning to fight, and you want to indicate that it was
deliberate.  Unfortumately, while we have a way to indicate intention in the
completed aspect, we don't have a way to do it in the on-going aspect.

I always feel inadequate when I describe aspect through the Internet and
e-mail, because it is so difficult of a concept to grasp, and I have no way
of knowing right away if you understood any of this...


>>>Hegh bIH SuvwI'
>>
>>Unfortunately, I'm not even sure WHAT this translates to... <bIH> doesn't
>>belong in there at all, as it is a pronoun which means "multiple items not
>>capable of speech".  You only have one warrior here, and he is dying,
>>true... but what does <bIH> have to do with it?
>
>I wanted to write {Hegh ghaH SuvwI'} with the meaning "The warrior, him and
>nobody else, dies". (This is a liberal translation.)


AH!  This is a bit easier to address. {{:)

Check out the -'e' suffix on page 29 of your Klingon Dictionary.  There are
a few examples that are a VERY comparable to what you wanted!  You can use
-'e' to emphasize the warrior in this fashion:

        Hegh SuvwI''e'


>>Other than the comments I mentioned above, yes. {{:)
>
>bItlho'


"You thank?"

If you are trying to say "thank you", try "I thank you":

        qatlho'

And you are most assuredly welcome... I hope this one helps you, too.


>Qapla'
>
>beHwI"av


--tQ


---
HoD trI'Qal, tlhIngan wo' Duj lIy So' ra'wI'
Captain T'rkal, Commander IKV Hidden Comet (Klingon speaker and net junkie!)
HaghtaHbogh tlhIngan yIvoqQo'!  toH... qatlh HaghtaH Qanqor HoD???
monlI'bogh tlhInganbe' yIvoqQo'!  SoHvaD monlI' trI'Qal...

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