tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 31 10:23:59 1997
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Re: Translation of English Past and Present Perfect Tenses in Klingon
- From: Terrence Donnelly <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Translation of English Past and Present Perfect Tenses in Klingon
- Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 12:17:29 -0600
At 08:50 PM 12/30/97 -0800, charghwI' wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Dec 1997 15:44:49 -0800 (PST) Michael Rhodes
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> On this list I have seen this idea expressed many times, namely that �pu�
>> should only be translated by an English perfect tense, not an English past
>> tense, and that an English past tense should not have �pu� but should be
>> figured out from context. This, however, does not seem to agree with the
>> usage in all of Marc Okrand�s published books on Klingon.
>
>At one of the qep'a' sessions in Philadelphia, Okrand explained
>about perfective vs. past tense, and then as the focus was
>moving on to something else, he muttered to one side, "Of course
>at one time, {-pu'} WAS past tense..." It was clear that when he
>was first developing the language, it was past tense and at some
>point, he decided to make it perfective instead.
>
An incidental proof of this (if any is needed beyond Okrand's saying so),
is that there is no word in Klingon for 'already'. We have {wej}, why
not *{wejHa'}? Answer: because the perfective expresses this notion:
wa'Hu' yuQ wIchargh. yo' wIcharghta'.
Yesterday we conquered the planet. We had already conquered the fleet.
wa'leS Duj vIje'. nuHmey vIje'ta'.
Tomorrow I'll buy a ship. I (will) have already bought weapons.
-- ter'eS
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711