tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 13 10:15:11 1999
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Re: Aspect
ja' charghwI':
>When Okrand provided canon explaining to us that, for example,
>to give my age, I'd say: {loSmaH loS ben jIboghpu'} several
>people got upset because of the use of the perfective. They
>wanted to argue about it.
"Upset" and "wanted to argue" are a bit stronger than I'd put it.
I myself was "uncomfortable" and "had some issues with it." :-)
>To calm them, I proposed that this works because, in the
>interest of accuracy, if you go back 44 years before today, I
>will at that point in time already be born, therefore the
>perfective is appropriate.
I had immediately come up with the same rationalization, but I
still don't like it a whole lot. It's a style thing, I guess,
more than any solid grammatical requirement.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh