tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 09 07:11:19 1999

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Re: Aspect (was RE: KLBC-Fr.)



>From: [email protected]
>Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 02:22:08 EDT
>
>In a message dated 8/3/1999 1:08:08 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
>[email protected] writes:
>
><< It sounds like (hai mei-you) is some kind of verb then? {wej} is 
> not. Instead, it is an adverbial in the same way that {DaH}, 
> {qen} and {tugh} are adverbials. >>
>===========
>{hai} is an adverbial equivalent to {wej} in its grammar position and 
>translatable as "still, yet."  {mei-you} is a verb meaning "has not."  To 
>express "not yet," both parts of the formula are necessary.  Important here 
>is that I still have a lot to learn about how Klingon adverbials establish 
>the aspect, due to my understanding of aspect established in Chinese by how 
>the speaker views the event, not merely by positing an adverbial.  In the 
>case of "not yet," {hai mei-you} virtually always is imperfective.  So, when 
>people tell me that Klingon's {wej} establishes a perfective, I have a lot of 
>re-learning to do to catch up with those people.

Erm, just working from your translation (I know no Chinese)... "has not" IS
perfective!  That's what perfective is in English, anyway.  Maybe the tense
is called imperfective for whatever reason by grammarians studying Chinese
(the tenses in Sanskrit have all kinds of inaccurate names in the mouths of
Western grammarians), but the meaning you've given it is
*perfective*... which accords well with what others have been saying about
Klingon, no?

~mark


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